e make great entertainments for our own comfort? I do not
know that anybody regarded the erection of the Henderson palace as an
altruistic performance. The socialistic newspapers said that it was pure
ostentation. But had it not been all along in the minds of the builders
to ask all the world to see it, to share the delight of it? Is this
a selfish spirit? When I stroll in the Park am I not pleased with the
equipages, with the display of elegance upon which so much money has
been lavished for my enjoyment?

All the world was asked to the Henderson reception. The coming event
was the talk of the town. I have now cuttings from the great journals,
articles describing the house, more beautifully written than Gibbon's
stately periods about the luxury of later Rome. It makes one smile to
hear that the day of fine writing is over. Everybody was eager to go;
there was some plotting to obtain invitations by those who felt that
they could not afford to be omitted from the list that would be printed;
by those who did not know the Hendersons, and did not care to know
them, but who shared the general curiosity; and everybody vowed that he
supposed he must go, but he hated such a crush and jam as it was sure
to be. Yet no one would have cared to go if it had not promised to be a
crush. I said that all the world was asked, which is our way of saying
that a thousand or two had been carefully selected from the million
within reach.

Invitations came to Brandon, of course, for old times' sake. The Morgans
said that they preferred a private view; Miss Forsythe declared that she
hadn't the heart to go; in short, Mr. and Mrs. Fairchild alone went to
represent the worldly element.

I am sorry to say that the reader must go to the files of the city press
for an account of the night's festivity. The pen that has been used in
portraying Margaret's career is entirely inadequate to it. There is a
general impression that an American can do anything that he sets his
hand to, but it is not true; it is true only that he tries everything.
The reporter is born, as the poet is; it cannot be acquired--that
astonishing, irresponsible command of the English language; that warm,
lyrical tone; that color, and bewildering metaphorical brilliancy; that
picturesqueness; that use of words as the painter uses pigments, in
splashes and blotches which are so effective; that touch of raillery
and sarcasm and condescension; that gay enjoyment of reveling in the
il