although one could find in it
all the rare woods and stones of the continent. Great numbers of foreign
workmen were employed in its finishing and decoration. One could wander
in it from Pompeii to Japan, from India to Versailles, from Greece to
the England of the Tudors, from the Alhambra to colonial Salem. It was
so cosmopolitan that a representative of almost any nationality, ancient
or modern, could have been suited in it with an apartment to his taste,
and if the interior lacked unity it did not lack a display of variety
that appealed to the imagination. From time to time paragraphs appeared
in English, French, and Italian journals, regarding the work of this and
that famous artist who was designing a set of furniture or furnishing
the drawings of a room, or carving the paneling and statuary, or
painting the ceiling of an apartment in the great Palazzo Henderson
in New York--Washington. The United American Workers (who were half
foreigners by birth) passed resolutions denouncing Henderson for
employing foreign pauper labor, and organized more than one strike while
the house was building. It was very unpatriotic and un-American to have
anything done that could not be done by a member of the Union. There was
a firm of excellent stone-cutters which offered to make all the statuary
needed in the house, and set it up in good shape, and when the offer was
declined, it memorialized Congress for protection.

Although Henderson gave what time he could spare to the design and
erection of the building, it pleased him to call it Margaret's house,
and to see the eagerness with which she entered into its embellishment.
There was something humorous in the enlargement of her ideas since the
days when she had wondered at the magnificence of the Washington Square
home, and modestly protested against its luxury. Her own boudoir was a
cheap affair compared with that in the new house.

"Don't you think, dear," she said, puzzling over the drawings, "that
it would better be all sandalwood? I hate mosaics. It looks so cheap to
have little bits of precious woods stuck about."

"I should think so. But what do you do with the ebony?"

"Oh, the ebony and gold? That is the adjoining sitting-room--such a
pretty contrast."

"And the teak?"

"It has such a beautiful polish. That is another room. Carmen says that
will be our sober room, where we go when we want to repent of things."

"Well, if you have any sandal-wood left over, you can wor