But it was all so different: the luxurious house, the carriage at call, the box at the opera, the social duties inevitable with her own acquaintances and the friends of her husband. She spoke of this in moments of confidence, and when she was tired, with a consciousness that it was a different life, but in no tone of regret, and I fancy that the French blood in her veins, which had so long run decorously in Puritan channels, leaped at its return into new gayety. Years ago Margaret had thought that she might some time be a missionary, at least that she should like to devote her life to useful labors among the poor and the unfortunate. If conscience ever reminded her of this, conscience was quieted by the suggestion that now she was in a position to be more liberal than she ever expected to be; that is, to give everything except the essential thing—herself. Henderson liked a gay house, brightness, dinners, entertainment, and that his wife should be seen and admired. Proof of his love she found in all this, and she entered into it with spirit, and an enjoyment increased by the thought that she was lightening the burden of his business, which she could see pressed more and more. Not that Henderson made any account of his growing occupations, or that any preoccupation was visible except to the eye of love, which is quick to see all moods. These were indeed happy days, full of the brightness of an expanding prosperity and unlimited possibilities of the enjoyment of life. It was in obedience to her natural instinct, and not yet a feeling of compensation and propitiation, that enlisted Margaret in the city charities, connection with which was a fashionable self-entertainment with some, and a means of social promotion with others. My wife came home a little weary with so much of the world, but, on the whole, impressed with Margaret's good-fortune. Henderson in his own house was the soul of consideration and hospitality, and Margaret was blooming in the beauty that shines in satisfied desire.
XIII
It is so painful to shrink, and so delightful to grow! Every one knows the renovation of feeling—often mistaken for a moral renewal—when the worn dress of the day is exchanged for the fresh evening toilet. The expansiveness of prosperity has a like effect, though the moralist is always piping about the beneficent uses of adversity. The moralist is, of course, right, time enough given; but what does the tree, putting out its tender green leaves to the wooing of the south wind, care for the moralist? How charming the world is when you go with it, and not against it!
It was better than Margaret had thought. When she came to Washington in the winter season the beautiful city seemed to welcome her and respond to the gayety of her spirit. It was so open, cheerful, hospitable, in the appearance of its smooth, broad avenues and pretty little parks, with the bronze statues which all looked noble—in the moonlight; it was such a combination and piquant contrast of shabby ease and stately elegance—negro cabins and stone mansions, picket-fences and sheds, and flower-banked terraces before rows of residences which bespoke wealth and refinement. The very aspect of the street population was novel; compared to New York, the city was as silent as a country village, and the passers, who have the fashion of walking in the middle of the street upon the asphalt as freely as upon the sidewalks, had a sort of busy leisureliness, the natural air of thousands of officials hived in offices for a few hours and then left in irresponsible idleness. But what most distinguished the town, after all, in Margaret's first glimpse of it, was the swarming negro population pervading every part of it—the slouching plantation negro, the smart mulatto girl with gay raiment and mincing step, the old-time auntie, the brisk waiter-boy with uncertain eye, the washerwoman, the hawkers and fruiterers, the loafing strollers of both sexes—carrying everywhere color, abandon, a certain picturesqueness and irresponsibility and good-nature, and a sense of moral relaxation in a too strict and duty-ridden world.
In the morning, when Margaret looked from the windows of the hotel, the sky was gray and yielding, and all the outlines of the looming buildings were softened in the hazy air. The dome of the Capitol seemed to float like a bubble, and to be as unsubstantial as the genii edifices in the Arabian tale. The Monument, the slim white shaft as tall as the Great Pyramid, was still more a dream creation, not really made of hard marble, but of something as soft as vapor, almost melting into the sky, and yet distinct, unwavering, its point piercing the upper air, threatening every instant to dissolve, as if it were truly the baseless fabric of a vision—light, unreal, ghost-like, spotless, pure as an unsullied thought; it might vanish in a breath; and yet, no; it is solid: in the mist of doubt, in the assault of storms, smitten by the sun, beaten by the tempests, it stands there, springing, graceful, immovable—emblem, let us say, of the purity and permanence of the republic.
“You never half told me, Rodney, how beautiful it all is!” Margaret exclaimed, in a glow of delight.
“Yes,” said Henderson, “the Monument is behaving very well this morning. I never saw it before look so little like a factory chimney.”
“That is, you never looked at it with my eyes before, cynic. But it is all so lovely, everywhere.”
“Of course it is, dear.” They were standing together at the window, and his arm was where it should have been. “What did you expect? There are concentrated here the taste and virtue of sixty millions of people.”