e use that people made of
money, after all, that was the real test? She did not like Hollowell,
but on acquaintance he was not the monster that he had appeared to
her in the newspapers. She was perplexed now and then by her husband's
business, but did it differ from that of other men she had known, except
that it was on a larger scale? And how much good could be done with
money!

On Easter morning, when Margaret returned from early service, to which
she had gone alone, she found upon her dressing-table a note addressed
to "My Wife," and in it a check for a large sum to her order, and a
card, on which was written, "For Margaret's Easter Charities." Flushed
with pleasure, she ran to meet her husband on the landing as he was
descending to breakfast, threw her arms about his neck, and, with tears
in her eyes, cried, "Dearest, how good you are!"

It is such a good and prosperous generation.

XIV

Our lives are largely made up of the things we do not have. In May,
the time of the apple blossoms--just a year from the swift wooing of
Margaret--Miss Forsythe received a letter from John Lyon. It was in a
mourning envelope. The Earl of Chisholm was dead, and John Lyon was Earl
of Chisholm. The information was briefly conveyed, but with an air of
profound sorrow. The letter spoke of the change that this loss brought
to his own life, and the new duties laid upon him, which would confine
him more closely to England. It also contained congratulations--which
circumstances had delayed--upon Mrs. Henderson's marriage, and a simple
wish for her happiness. The letter was longer than it need have been
for these purposes; it seemed to love to dwell upon the little visit to
Brandon and the circle of friends there, and it was pervaded by a tone,
almost affectionate, towards Miss Forsythe, which touched her very
deeply. She said it was such a manly letter.

America, the earl said, interested him more and more. In all history,
he wrote, there never had been such an opportunity for studying
the formation of society, for watching the working out of political
problems; the elements meeting were so new, and the conditions so
original, that historical precedents were of little service as guides.
He acknowledged an almost irresistible impulse to come back, and he
announced his intention of another visit as soon as circumstances
permitted.

I had noticed this in English travelers of intelligence before. Crude
as the country is, and uninte