s would interfere with his career, but never a moment
when he had doubted that her love for him would be superior to any
solicitations from others. Carmen, who knew him like a book, would have
said that the model wife for Henderson would be a woman devoted to him
and to his interests, and not too scrupulous. A wife is a torment, if
you can't feel at ease with her.

"If there were only a French fleet in the harbor, dear," said Margaret
one day, "I should feel that I had quite taken up the life of my
great-great-grandmother."

They were sailing in Hollowell's yacht, in which Uncle Jerry had brought
his family round from New York. He hated the water, but Mrs. Hollowell
and the children doted on the sea, he said.

"Wouldn't the torpedo station make up for it?" Henderson asked.

"Hardly. But it shows the change of a hundred years. Only, isn't it odd,
this personal dropping back into an old situation? I wonder what she was
like?"

"The accounts say she was the belle of Newport. I suppose Newport has a
belle once in a hundred years. The time has come round. But I confess
I don't miss the French fleet," replied Henderson, with a look of love
that thrilled Margaret through and through.

"But you would have been an officer on the fleet, and I should have
fallen in love with you. Ah, well, it is better as it is."

And it was better. The days went by without a cloud. Even after
Henderson had gone, the prosperity of life filled her heart more and
more.

"She might have been like me," Carmen said to herself, "if she had
only started right; but it is so hard to get rid of a New England
conscience."

When Margaret stayed in her room, one morning, to write a long-postponed
letter to her aunt, she discovered that she had very little to write,
at least that she wanted to write, to her aunt. She began, however,
resolutely with a little account of her life. But it seemed another
thing on paper, addressed to the loving eyes at Brandon. There were too
much luxury and idleness and triviality in it, too much Carmen and Count
Crispo and flirtation and dissipation in it.

She tore it up, and went to the window and looked out upon the sea. She
was indignant with the Brandon people that they should care so little
about this charming life. She was indignant at herself that she had torn
up the letter. What had she done that anybody should criticise her?
Why shouldn't she live her life, and not be hampered everlastingly by
comparisons?