he could not have done so more effectually than
he did in making us the confidants of a little plan he had in the city,
which was a profound secret to the party most concerned. This was the
purchase and furnishing of a house, and we made many clandestine visits
with him to town in the early autumn in furtherance of his plan. He was
intent on a little surprise, and when I once hinted to him that women
liked to have a hand in making the home they were to occupy, he said he
thought that my wife knew Margaret's taste--and besides, he added, with a
smile, "it will be only temporary; I should like her, if she chooses, to
build and furnish a house to suit herself." In any one else this would
have seemed like assumption, but with Henderson it was only the simple
belief in his career.

We were still more surprised when we came to see the temporary home that
Henderson had selected, the place where the bride was to alight, and look
about her for such a home as would suit her growing idea of expanding
fortune and position. It was one of the old-fashioned mansions on
Washington Square, built at a time when people attached more importance
to room and comfort than to outside display--a house that seemed to have
traditions of hospitality and of serene family life. It was being
thoroughly renovated and furnished, with as little help from the
decorative artist and the splendid upholsterer as consisted with some
regard to public opinion; in fact the expenditure showed in solid dignity
and luxurious ease, and not in the construction of a museum in which one
could only move about with the constant fear of destroying something. My
wife was given almost carte blanche in the indulgence of her taste, and
she confessed her delight in being able for once to deal with a house
without the feeling that she was ruining me. Only in the suite designed
for Margaret did Henderson seriously interfere, and insist upon a luxury
that almost took my wife's breath away. She opposed it on moral grounds.
She said that no true woman could stand such pampering of her senses
without destruction of her moral fibre. But Henderson had his way, as he
always had it. What pleased her most in the house was the conservatory,
opening out from the drawing-room--a spacious place with a fountain and
cool vines and flowering plants, not a tropical hothouse in a stifling
atmosphere, in which nothing could live except orchids and flowers born
near the equator, but a garden with a