nce of the house as a centre of fashion.
Henderson's least movements were always chronicled and speculated on,
and for years he had been one of the stock subjects, out of which even
the dullest interviewers, who watch the hotel registers in all parts of
the country, felt sure that they could make an acceptable paragraph. The
arrival of his wife, therefore, was a newspaper event.

They said in Washington at the time that Mrs. Henderson was one of the
most fascinating of women, amiable, desirous to please, approachable,
and devoted to the interests of her husband. If some of the women,
residents in established society, were a little shy of her, if some,
indeed, thought her dangerous--women are always thinking this of each
other, and surely they ought to know-nothing of this appeared in the
reports. The men liked her. She had so much vivacity, such esprit, she
understood men so well, and the world, and could make allowances, and
was always an entertaining companion. More than one Senator paid marked
court to her, more than one brilliant young fellow of the House thought
himself fortunate if he sat next her at dinner, and even cabinet
officers waited on her at supper. It could not be doubted that a smile
and a confidential or a witty remark from Mrs. Henderson brightened many
an evening. Wherever she went her charming toilets were fully described,
and the public knew as well as her jewelers the number and cost of her
diamonds, her necklaces, her tiaras. But this was for the world and
for state occasions. At home she liked simplicity. And this was what
impressed the reporters when, in the line of their public duty, they
were admitted to her presence. With them she was very affable, and she
made them feel that they could almost be classed with her friends, and
that they were her guardians against the vulgar publicity, which she
disliked and shrank from.

There went abroad, therefore, an impression of her amiability, her
fabulous wealth in jewels and apparel, her graciousness and her
cleverness and her domesticity. Her manners seemed to the reporters
those of a "lady," and of this both her wit and freedom from prudishness
and her courteous treatment of them convinced them. And the best of all
this was that while it was said that Henderson was one of the boldest
and shrewdest of operators, and a man to be feared in the Street, he
was in his family relations one of the most generous and kind-hearted of
men.

Henderson himself