operation. It furnished occupation and gave good fees to
a multitude of lawyers, and was dignified by the anxious consultation of
many learned judges. A moralist, if he were poor and pessimistic,
might have put the case in a line, and taken that line from the Mosaic
decalogue (which was not intended for this new dispensation); but it was
involved in such a cloud of legal technicalities, and took on such an
aspect of enterprise and development of resources, and what not,
that the general public mind was completely befogged about it. I am
charitable enough to suppose that if the scheme had failed, the public
conscience is so tender that there would have been a question of
Henderson's honesty. But it did not fail.

Of this scheme, however, we knew nothing at the time in Brandon.
Henderson was never in better spirits, never more agreeable, and it did
not need inquiry to convince one that he was never so prosperous. He was
often with us, in flying visits, and I can well remember that his coming
and the expectation of it gave a kind of elation to the summer--that and
Margaret's supreme and sunny happiness. Even my wife admitted that it
was on both sides a love-match, and could urge nothing against it
except the woman's instinct that made her shrink from the point of ever
thinking of him as a husband for herself, which seemed to me a perfectly
reasonable feeling under all the circumstances.

The summer--or what we call summer in the North, which is usually
a preparation for warm weather, ending in a preparation for cold
weather--seemed to me very short--but I have noticed that each summer is
a little shorter than the preceding one. If Henderson had wanted to gain
the confidence of my wife 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
on