caused for a
time a revival of all the old affection, in sympathy with a
disappointment which awoke in our womankind all the tenderness of their
natures. She was indeed a little delicate for some time, but all our
apprehensions were relieved by the reports from Rome of a succession of
gayeties little interfered with by archaeological studies. They returned
in June. Of the year abroad there was nothing to chronicle, and there
would be nothing to note except that when Margaret passed a day with us
on her return, we felt, as never before, that our interests in life were
more and more divergent.

How could it be otherwise? There were so many topics of conversation that
we had to avoid. Even light remarks on current news, comments that we
used to make freely on the conduct of conspicuous persons, now carried
condemnation that took a personal color. The doubtful means of making
money, the pace of fashionable life, the wasteful prodigality of the
time, we instinctively shrank from speaking of before Margaret. Perhaps
we did her injustice. She was never more gracious, never more anxious to
please. I fancied that there was at times something pathetic in her
wistful desire for our affection and esteem. She was always a generous
girl, and I have no doubt she felt repelled at the quiet rejection of her
well-meant efforts to play the Lady Bountiful. There were moments during
her brief visit when her face was very sad, but no doubt her predominant
feeling escaped her in regard to the criticism quoted from somebody on
Jerry Hollowell's methods and motives. "People are becoming very
self-righteous," she said.

My wife said to me that she was reminded of the gentle observation of
Carmen Eschelle, "The people I cannot stand are those who pretend they
are not wicked." If one does not believe in anybody his cynicism has
usually a quality of contemptuous bitterness in it. One brought up as
Margaret had been could not very well come to her present view of life
without a touch of this quality, but her disposition was so lovely
--perhaps there is no moral quality in a good temper--that change of
principle could not much affect it. And then she was never more winning;
perhaps her beauty had taken on a more refined quality from her illness
abroad; perhaps it was that indefinable knowledge of the world, which is
recognized as well in dress as in manner, which increased her
attractiveness. This was quite apart from the fact that she was not so
s