op and ball about the walks, are more subdued than in the
spring-time; the old men, seeking now the benches where the sunshine
falls, sit in dreamy reminiscence of the days that are gone; the
wandering minstrel of Italy turns the crank of his wailing machine, O!
bella, bella, as in the spring, but the notes seem to come from far off
and to be full of memory rather than of promise; and at early morning,
or when the shadows lengthen at evening, the south wind that stirs the
trees has a salt smell, and sends a premonitory shiver of change to the
fading foliage. But how bright are the squares and the streets, for all
this note of melancholy! Life is to begin again.

But the social season opened languidly. It takes some time to recover
from the invigoration of the summer gayety--to pick up again the threads
and weave them into that brilliant pattern, which scarcely shows all its
loveliness of combination and color before the weavers begin to work in
the subdued tints of Lent. How delightful it is to see this knitting and
unraveling of the social fabric year after year! and how untiring are
the senders of the shuttles, the dyers, the hatchelers, the spinners,
the ever-busy makers and destroyers of the intricate web we call
society! After one campaign, must there not be time given to organize
for another? Who has fallen out, who are the new recruits, who are
engaged, who will marry, who have separated, who has lost his money?
Before we can safely reorganize we must not only examine the hearts
but the stock-list. No matter how many brilliant alliances have been
arranged, no matter how many husbands and wives have drifted apart in
the local whirlpools of the summer's current, the season will be dull
if Wall Street is torpid and discouraged. We cannot any of us, you see,
live to ourselves alone. Does not the preacher say that? And do we not
all look about us in the pews, when he thus moralizes, to see who has
prospered? The B's have taken a back seat, the C's have moved up nearer
the pulpit. There is a reason for these things, my friends.

I am sorry to say that Margaret was usually obliged to go alone to the
little church where she said her prayers; for however restful her life
might have been while that season was getting under way, Henderson was
involved in the most serious struggle of his life--a shameful kind of
conspiracy, Margaret told Carmen, against him. I have hinted at his
annoyance in the courts. Ever since September