When we have become familiar with an environment we sometimes wonder why at any time it should have appeared strange to us; and it was thus with Henry as the months moved along.  The mansion in Prairie Avenue was now home-like to him, and the contrasts which its luxurious belongings were wont to summon were now less sharp and were dismissed with a growing easiness.  Feeling the force which position urges, he worked without worry, and conscious of a certain ability, he did not question the success of his plans.  But how much of the future did he intend these plans to cover?  He turned from this troublesome uncertainty and found satisfaction in that state of mind which permits one day to forecast the day which is to follow, and on a futurity stretching further than this he resolutely turned his back.  In his work and in his rest at the Press Club, whither he went every afternoon, he found his keenest pleasure.  He was also fond of the theater, not to sit with a box party, but to loiter with Richmond—­to enjoy the natural, to growl at the tame, and to leave the place whenever a tiresome dialogue came on.  Ellen sometimes drew him into society, and on Sundays he usually went with Mrs. Witherspoon to a Congregational church where a preacher who had taught his countenance the artifice of a severe solemnity denounced the money-chasing spirit of the age at about double the price that he had received in the East.

The Witherspoons had much company and they entertained generously, though not with a showy lavishness, for the old man had a quick eye for the appearance of waste.  It was noticeable, too, that since Henry came young women who were counted as Ellen’s friends were more frequent with their visits.  Witherspoon rarely laughed at anything, but he laughed at this.  His wife, however, discovered in it no cause for mirth.  A mother may plan the marriage of her daughter, for that is romantic, but she looks with an anxious eye upon the marriage of her son, for that is serious.

One evening, when Witherspoon and Henry had gone into the library to smoke, the merchant remarked:  “I want, to talk to you about the course of your paper.”

“All right, sir.”

The merchant stood on the hearth-rug.  He lighted his cigar, turned it round and round, and then said: 

“Brooks called my attention this afternoon to an article on working girls.  Does it meet with your approval?”

“Why, yes.  It was a special assignment, and I gave it out.”

“Hum!” Witherspoon grunted.  He sat down in his leather-covered chair, crossed his legs, struck a match on the sole of his slipper, relighted his cigar, which he had suffered to go out, and for a time smoked in silence.

“Is there anything wrong about it?” Henry asked.