ly the simple belief in his career.

We were still more surprised when we came to see the temporary home that
Henderson had selected, the place where the bride was to alight,
and look about her for such a home as would suit her growing idea of
expanding fortune and position. It was one of the old-fashioned
mansions on Washington Square, built at a time when people attached more
importance to room and comfort than to outside display--a house that
seemed to have traditions of hospitality and of serene family life. It
was being thoroughly renovated and furnished, with as little help from
the decorative artist and the splendid upholsterer as consisted with
some regard to public opinion; in fact the expenditure showed in solid
dignity and luxurious ease, and not in the construction of a museum in
which one could only move about with the constant fear of destroying
something. My wife was given almost carte blanche in the indulgence of
her taste, and she confessed her delight in being able for once to deal
with a house without the feeling that she was ruining me. Only in the
suite designed for Margaret did Henderson seriously interfere, and
insist upon a luxury that almost took my wife's breath away. She opposed
it on moral grounds. She said that no true woman could stand such
pampering of her senses without destruction of her moral fibre. But
Henderson had his way, as he always had it. What pleased her most in
the house was the conservatory, opening out from the drawing-room--a
spacious place with a fountain and cool vines and flowering plants, not
a tropical hothouse in a stifling atmosphere, in which nothing could
live except orchids and flowers born near the equator, but a garden with
a temperature adapted to human lungs, where one could sit and enjoy the
sunshine, and the odor of flowers, and the clear and not too incessant
notes of Mexican birds. But when it was all done, undoubtedly the most
agreeable room in the house was that to which least thought had been
given, the room to which any odds and ends could be sent, the room
to which everybody gravitated when rest and simple enjoyment without
restraint were the object Henderson's own library, with its big open
fire, and the books and belongings of his bachelor days. Man is usually
not credited with much taste or ability to take care of himself in the
matter of comfortable living, but it is frequently noticed that when
woman has made a dainty paradise of every other porti