be a region of
aerial freedom, if one can attain it, where the moral forces cease to be
operative.

They remained in Europe a year, although Mr. Henderson in the interim
made two or three hasty trips to this country, always, so far as it was
made public, upon errands of great importance, and in connection with
names of well-known foreign capitalists and enterprises of dignity.
Margaret wrote seldom, but always with evident enjoyment of her
experiences, which were mainly social, for wherever they went they
commanded the consideration that is accorded to fortune. What most
impressed me in these hasty notes was that the woman was so little
interested in the persons and places which in the old days she expressed
such a lively desire to see. If she saw them at all, it was from a
different point of view than that she formerly had. She did indeed
express her admiration of some charming literary friends of ours in
London, to whom I had written to call on her--people in very moderate
circumstances, I am ashamed to say--but she had not time to see much
of them. She and her husband had spent a couple of days at
Chisholm--delightful days. Of the earl she had literally nothing to say,
except that he was very kind, and that his family received them with the
most engaging and simple cordiality. "It makes me laugh," she wrote from
Chisholm, "when I think what we considered fine at Lenox and Newport.
I've got some ideas for our new house." A note came from "John Lyon" to
Miss Forsythe, expressing the great pleasure it was to return, even in
so poor a way, the hospitality he had received at Brandon. I did not see
it, but Miss Forsythe said it was a sad little note.

In Paris Margaret was ill--very ill; and this misfortune 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