k it into your
Boys' Lodging-house, you know."

"Don't be foolish! And then the ballroom, ninety feet long--it looks
small on the paper. And do you think we'd better have those life-size
figures all round, mediaeval statues, with the incandescents? Carmen
says she would prefer a row of monks--something piquant about that in a
ballroom. I don't know that I like the figures, after all; they are too
crushing and heavy."

"It would make a good room for the Common Council," Henderson suggested.
"Wouldn't it be prettier hung with silken arras figured with a chain of
dancing-girls? Dear me, I don't know what to do. Rodney, you must put
your mind on it."

"Might line it with gold plate. I'll make arrangements so that you can
draw on the Bank of England."

Margaret looked hurt. "But you told me, dear, not to spare
anything--that we would have the finest house in the city. I'm sure I
sha'n't enjoy it unless you want it."

"Oh, I want it," resumed Henderson, good-humoredly. "Go ahead, little
wife. We shall pull through."

"Women beat me," Henderson confessed to Uncle Jerry next day. "They are
the most economical of beings and the most extravagant. I've got to look
round for an extra million somewhere today."

"Yes, there is this good thing about women," Uncle Jerry responded, with
a twinkle in his eyes, "they share your riches just as cheerfully as
they do your poverty. I tell Maria that if I had the capacity for making
money that she has for spending it I could assume the national debt."

To have the finest house in the city, or rather, in the American
newspaper phrase, in the Western world, was a comprehensible ambition
for Henderson, for it was a visible expression of his wealth and his
cultivated taste. But why Margaret should wish to exchange her
dainty and luxurious home in Washington Square for the care of a
vast establishment big enough for a royal court, my wife could not
comprehend. But why not? To be the visible leader in her world, to be
able to dispense a hospitality which should surpass anything heretofore
seen, to be the mistress and autocrat of an army of servants, with ample
room for their evolution, in a palace whose dimensions and splendor
should awaken envy and astonishment--would this not be an attraction to
a woman of imagination and spirit?

Besides, they had outgrown the old house. There was no longer room
for the display, scarcely for the storage, of the works of art, the
pictures, the curiosit