and the conversation drifting into other matters, Henderson had taken from his desk and shown him a rare old book which he had picked up the day before in a second-hand shop.  This led to further talk about Henderson’s hobby, and the editor had asked permission to send a reporter down to make a note of Henderson’s collection.  It would make a good midsummer item, “The Stock-Broker in Literature,” “The Private Tastes of a Millionaire,” etc.  The column got condensed into a portable paragraph, and went the rounds of the press, and changed the opinions of a good many people about the great operator—­he wasn’t altogether devoted to vulgar moneymaking.  Uncle Jerry himself read the column with appreciation of its value.  “It diverts the public mind,” he said.  He himself had recently diverted the public mind by the gift of a bell to the Norembega Theological (colored) Institute, and the paragraph announcing the fact conveyed the impression that while Uncle Jerry was a canny old customer, his heart was on the right side.  “There are worse men than Uncle Jerry who are not worth a cent,” was one of the humorous paragraphs tacked on to the item.

Margaret was not alone in finding the social atmosphere of Lenox as congenial as its natural beauties.  Mrs. Laflamme declared that it was the perfection of existence for a couple of months, one in early summer and another in the golden autumn with its pathetic note of the falling curtain dropping upon the dream of youth.  Mrs. Laflamme was not a sentimental person, but she was capable of drifting for a moment into a poetic mood—­a great charm in a woman of her vivacity and air of the world.  Margaret remembered her very distinctly, although she had only exchanged a word with her at the memorable dinner in New York when Henderson had revealed her feelings to herself.  Mrs. Laflamme had the immense advantage—­it seemed so to her after five years of widowhood of being a widow on the sunny side of thirty-five.  If she had lost some illusions she had gained a great deal of knowledge, and she had no feverish anxiety about what life would bring her.  Although she would not put it in this way to herself, she could look about her deliberately, enjoying the prospect, and please herself.  Her position had two advantages—­experience and opportunity.  A young woman unmarried, she said, always has the uneasy sense of the possibility—­well, it is impossible to escape slang, and she said it with the merriest laugh—­the possibility of being left.  A day or two after Margaret’s arrival she had driven around to call in her dog-cart, looking as fresh as a daisy in her sunhat.  She held the reins, but her seat was shared by Mr. Fox McNaughton, the most useful man in the village, indispensable indeed; a bachelor, with no intentions, no occupation, no ambition (except to lead the german), who could mix a salad, brew a punch, organize a picnic, and chaperon anything in petticoats with entire propriety, without regard to age.  And he had a position of social authority.  This eminence Mr. Fox McNaughton had attained by always doing the correct thing.  The obligation of society to such men is never enough acknowledged.  While they are trusted and used, and worked to death, one is apt to hear them spoken of in a deprecatory tone.