The Hendersons liked to have their house full, something going on —­dinners, musicales, readings, little comedies in the theatre; there was continual coming and going, calling, dropping in for a cup of tea, late suppers after the opera; the young fellows of town found no place so agreeable for a half-hour after business as Mrs. Henderson’s reception-room.  I fancied that life would be dull and hang heavily, especially for Margaret, without this perpetual movement and excitement.  Henderson, who certainly had excitement enough without seeking it at home, was pleased that his wife should be a leader in society, as he was in the great enterprises in which his fortune waxed to enormous proportions.  About what we call the home life I do not know.  Necessarily, as heretofore, Henderson was often absent, and whether Margaret accompanied him or not, a certain pace of life had to be kept up.

I suppose there is no delusion more general than that of retiring upon a fortune—­as if, when gained, a fortune would let a person retire, or, still more improbable, as if it ever were really attained.  It is not at all probable that Henderson had set any limit to that he desired; the wildest speculations about its amount would no doubt fall short of satisfying the love of power which he expected to gratify in immeasurably increasing it.  Does not history teach us that to be a great general, or poet, or philanthropist, is not more certain to preserve one’s name than to be the richest man, the Croesus, in his age?  I could imagine Margaret having a certain growing pride in this distinction, and a glowing ambition to be socially what her husband was financially.

Heaven often plans more mercifully for us than we plan for ourselves.  Had not the Hebrew prophets a vision of the punishment by prosperity?  Perhaps it applied to an old age, gratified to the end by possession of everything that selfishness covets, and hardened into absolute worldliness.  I knew once an old lady whose position and wealth had always made her envied, and presumably happy, who was absolutely to be pitied for a soul empty of all noble feeling.

The sun still shone on Margaret, and life yielded to her its specious sweets.  She was still young.  If in her great house, in her dazzling career, in the whirl of resplendent prosperity, she had hours of unsatisfied yearning for something unattainable in this direction, the world would not have guessed it.  Whenever we heard of her she was the centre and star of whatever for the moment excited the world of fashion.  It was indeed, at last, in the zenith of her gay existence that I, became aware of a certain feminine anxiety about her in our neighborhood.  She had been, years before, very ill in Paris, and the apprehensions for her safety now were based upon the recollection of her peril then.  The days came when the tender-hearted Miss Forsythe went about the house restless, impatient, tearful, waiting for a summons that was sure to come when she was needed.