But in this period of calm and reflection it was impossible that a woman of Margaret's habits and temperament should not attempt to settle in her mind what that life was yonder of which she had a little taste; what was the career that Henderson had marked out for himself; what were his principles; what were the methods and reasons of his evident success. Endeavoring in her clear mind to separate the person, about whose personality she was so fondly foolish, from his schemes, which she so dimly comprehended, and applying to his somewhat hazy occupations her simple moral test, were the schemes quite legitimate? Perhaps she did not go so far as this; but what she read in the newspapers of moneymaking in these days made her secretly uneasy, and she found herself wishing that he were definitely practicing some profession, or engaged in some one solid occupation. In the little parliament at our house, where everything, first and last, was overhauled and brought to judgment, without, it must be confessed, any visible effect on anything, one evening a common “incident” of the day started the conversation. It was an admiring account in a newspaper of a brilliant operation by which three or four men had suddenly become millionaires. “I don't see,” said my wife, “any mention in this account of the thousands who have been reduced to poverty by this operation.” “No,” said Morgan; “that is not interesting.” “But it would be very interesting to me,” Mrs. Fletcher remarked. “Is there any protection, Mr. Morgan, for people who have invested their little property?” “Yes; the law.” “But suppose your money is all invested, say in a railway, and something goes wrong, where are you to get the money to pay for the law that will give you restitution? Is there anything in the State, or public opinion, or anywhere, that will protect your interests against clever swindling?” “Not that I know of,” Morgan admitted. “You take your chance when you let your money go out of your stocking. You see there are so many people who want it. You can put it in the ground.” “But if I own the ground I put it in, the voters who have no ground will tax it till there is nothing left for me.” “That is equality.” “But it isn't equality, for somebody gets very rich in railways or lands, while we lose our little all. Don't you think there ought to be a public official whose duty it is to enforce the law gratis which I cannot afford to enforce when I am wronged?”