ch every five
minutes, and--"

"And me!" cried Margaret, rising. The guests all clapped their hands.

The Hendersons liked to have their house full, something going
on--dinners, musicales, readings, little comedies in the theatre; there
was continual coming and going, calling, dropping in for a cup of tea,
late suppers after the opera; the young fellows of town found no
place so agreeable for a half-hour after business as Mrs. Henderson's
reception-room. I fancied that life would be dull and hang heavily,
especially for Margaret, without this perpetual movement and excitement.
Henderson, who certainly had excitement enough without seeking it at
home, was pleased that his wife should be a leader in society, as he
was in the great enterprises in which his fortune waxed to enormous
proportions. About what we call the home life I do not know.
Necessarily, as heretofore, Henderson was often absent, and whether
Margaret accompanied him or not, a certain pace of life had to be kept
up.

I suppose there is no delusion more general than that of retiring upon
a fortune--as if, when gained, a fortune would let a person retire, or,
still more improbable, as if it ever were really attained. It is not at
all probable that Henderson had set any limit to that he desired; the
wildest speculations about its amount would no doubt fall short
of satisfying the love of power which he expected to gratify in
immeasurably increasing it. Does not history teach us that to be a great
general, or poet, or philanthropist, is not more certain to preserve
one's name than to be the richest man, the Croesus, in his age? I could
imagine Margaret having a certain growing pride in this distinction, and
a glowing ambition to be socially what her husband was financially.

Heaven often plans more mercifully for us than we plan for ourselves.
Had not the Hebrew prophets a vision of the punishment by prosperity?
Perhaps it applied to an old age, gratified to the end by possession
of everything that selfishness covets, and hardened into absolute
worldliness. I knew once an old lady whose position and wealth had
always made her envied, and presumably happy, who was absolutely to be
pitied for a soul empty of all noble feeling.

The sun still shone on Margaret, and life yielded to her its specious
sweets. She was still young. If in her great house, in her dazzling
career, in the whirl of resplendent prosperity, she had hours of
unsatisfied yearning for somet