to her husband, when he ordered his brougham
after breakfast, "sharp seven, we are to dine alone the first time." It
lacked two hours yet of dinner-time, but she was dressing for want of
other occupation.

Was this then the summit of her ambition? She had indeed looked forward
to some such moment as this as one of exultation in the satisfaction of
all her wishes. She took up a book of apothegms that lay on the table,
and opened by chance to this, "Unhappy are they whose desires are all
ratified." It was like a sting. Why should she think at this moment of
her girlhood; of the ideals indulged in during that quiet time; of her
aunt's cheerful, tender, lonely life; of her rejection of Mr. Lyon?
She did not love Mr. Lyon; she was not satisfied then. How narrow that
little life in Brandon had been! She threw the book from her. She hated
all that restraint and censoriousness. If her aunt could see her in all
this splendor, she would probably be sadder than ever. What right had
she to sit there and mourn--as she knew her aunt did--and sigh over her
career? What right had they to sit in judgment on her?

She went out from her room, down the great stairway, into the spacious
house, pausing in the great hall to see opening vista after vista in the
magnificent apartments. It was the first time that she had alone really
taken the full meaning of it--had possessed it with the eye. It was
hers. Wherever she went, all hers. No, she had desires yet. It should
be filled with life--it should be the most brilliant house in the world.
Society should see, should acknowledge the leadership. Yes--as she
glanced at herself in a drawing-room mirror--they should see that
Henderson's wife was capable of a success equal to his own, and she
would stop the hateful gossip about him. She set her foot firmly as she
thought about it; she would crush those people who had sneered at them
as parvenu. She strayed into the noble gallery. Some face there touched
her, some landscape soothed her. No, she said to herself, I will win
them, I do not want hateful strife.

Who knows what is in a woman? how many moods in a quarter of an hour,
and which is the characteristic one? Was this the Margaret who had
walked with Lyon that Sunday afternoon of the baptism, and had a heart
full of pain for the pitiful suffering of the world?

As she sat there she grew calmer. Her thoughts went away in a vision
of all the social possibilities of this wonderful house. From vagu