he had been pestered with
injunctions, threatened with attachments. And now December had come and
Congress was in session; in the very first days an investigation
had been ordered into the land grants involved in the Southwestern
operations. Uncle Jerry was in Washington to explain matters there,
and Henderson, with the ablest counsel in the city, was fighting in the
courts. The affair made a tremendous stir. Some of the bondholders of
the A. and B. happened to be men of prominence, and able to make a noise
about their injury. As several millions were involved in this one branch
of the case--the suit of the bondholders--the newspapers treated it
with the consideration and dignity it deserved. It was a vast financial
operation, some said, scathingly, a "deal," but the magnitude of it
prevented it from falling into the reports of petty swindling that
appear in the police-court column. It was a public affair, and not to
be judged by one's private standard. I know that there were remarks made
about Henderson that would have pained Margaret if she had heard them,
but I never heard that he lost standing in the street. Still, in justice
to the street it must be said that it charitably waits for things to be
proven, and that if Henderson had failed, he might have had little more
lenient judgment in the street than elsewhere.

In fact, those were very trying days for him-days when he needed all the
private sympathy he could get, and to be shielded, in his great fight
with the conspiracy, from petty private annoyances. It needed all his
courage and good-temper and bonhomie to carry him through. That he went
through was evidence not only of his adroitness and ability, but it was
proof also that he was a good fellow. If there were people who thought
otherwise, I never heard that they turned their backs on him, or failed
in that civility which he never laid aside in his intercourse with
others.

If a man present a smiling front to the world under extreme trial, is
not that all that can be expected of him? Shall he not be excused for
showing a little irritation at home when things go badly? Henderson
was as good-humored a man as I ever knew, and he loved Margaret, he was
proud of her, he trusted her. Since when did the truest love prevent a
man from being petulant, even to the extent of wounding those he best
loves, especially if the loved one shows scruples when sympathy is
needed? The reader knows that the present writer has no gr