to dress warmly enough. We come to endure
pain and loss with equanimity; one thing and another drops out of our
lives-youth, for instance, and sometimes enthusiasm--and still we go on
with a good degree of enjoyment. I do not say that Miss Forsythe was
quite the same, or that a certain zest of life and spring had not gone
out of the little Brandon neighborhood.

As the months and the years went by we saw less and less of Margaret
--less and less, that is, in the old way. Her rare visits were
perfunctory, and gave little satisfaction to any of us; not that she was
ungracious or unkindly, but simply because the things we valued in life
were not the same. There was no doubt that any of us were welcome at the
Hendersons' when they were in the city, genuinely, though in an exterior
way, but gradually we almost ceased to keep up an intercourse which was a
little effort on both sides. Miss Forsythe came back from her infrequent
city visits weary and sad.

Was Margaret content? I suppose so. She was gay; she was admired; she was
always on view in that semi-public world in which Henderson moved; she
attained a newspaper notoriety which many people envied. If she journeyed
anywhere, if she tarried anywhere, if she had a slight illness, the fact
was a matter of public concern. We knew where she worshiped; we knew the
houses she frequented, the charities she patronized, the fetes she
adorned, every new costume that her wearing made the fashion. Was she
content? She could perhaps express no desire that an attempt was not made
to gratify it. But it seems impossible to get enough things enough money,
enough pleasure. They had a magnificent place in Newport; it was not
large enough; they were always adding to it--awning, a ballroom, some
architectural whim or another. Margaret had a fancy for a cottage at Bar
Harbor, but they rarely went there. They had an interest in Tuxedo; they
belonged to an exclusive club on Jekyl Island. They passed one winter
yachting among the islands in the eastern Mediterranean; a part of
another sailing from one tropical paradise to another in the West Indies.
If there was anything that money could not obtain, it seemed to be a
place where they could rest in serene peace with themselves.

I used to wonder whether Margaret was satisfied with her husband's
reputation. Perhaps she mistook the newspaper homage, the notoriety, for
public respect. She saw his influence and his power. She saw that he was
feared,