temperature adapted to human lungs,
where one could sit and enjoy the sunshine, and the odor of flowers, and
the clear and not too incessant notes of Mexican birds. But when it was
all done, undoubtedly the most agreeable room in the house was that to
which least thought had been given, the room to which any odds and ends
could be sent, the room to which everybody gravitated when rest and
simple enjoyment without restraint were the object Henderson's own
library, with its big open fire, and the books and belongings of his
bachelor days. Man is usually not credited with much taste or ability to
take care of himself in the matter of comfortable living, but it is
frequently noticed that when woman has made a dainty paradise of every
other portion of the house, the room she most enjoys, that from which it
is difficult to keep out the family, is the one that the man is permitted
to call his own, in which he retains some of the comforts and can indulge
some of the habits of his bachelor days. There is an important truth in
this fact with regard to the sexes, but I do not know what it is.

They were married in October, and went at once to their own house. I
suppose all other days were but a preparation for this golden autumn day
on which we went to church and returned to the wedding-breakfast. I am
sure everybody was happy. Miss Forsythe was so happy that tears were in
her eyes half the time, and she bustled about with an affectation of
cheerfulness that was almost contagious. Poor, dear, gentle lady! I can
imagine the sensations of a peach-tree, in an orchard of trees which bud
and bloom and by-and-by are weighty with yellow fruit, year after year--a
peach-tree that blooms, also, but never comes to fruition, only wastes
its delicate sweetness on the air, and finally blooms less and less, but
feels nevertheless in each returning spring the stir of the sap and the
longing for that fuller life, while all the orchard bursts into flower,
and the bees swarm about the pink promises, and the fruit sets and slowly
matures to lusciousness in the sun of July. I fancy the wedding, which
robbed us all, was hardest for her, for it was in one sense a finality of
her life. Whereas if Margaret had regrets--and deep sorrow she had in
wrenching herself from the little neighborhood, though she never could
have guessed the vacancy she caused by the withdrawal of her loved
presence--her own life was only just beginning, and she was sustained by
th