A MODERN CHRONICLE

By Winston Churchill

CONTENTS OF THE ENTIRE SET:

BOOK I. 

Volume 1. I. WHAT'S IN HEREDITY?II. PERDITA RECALLEDIII. CONCERNING PROVIDENCEIV. OF TEMPERAMENTV. IN WHICH PROVIDENCE BEEPS FAITHVI. HONORA HAS A GLIMPSE OF THE WORLD

Volume 2. VII. THE OLYMPIAN ORDERVIII. A CHAPTER OF CONQUESTSIX. IN WHICH THE VICOMTE CONTINUES HIS STUDIESX. IN WHICH HONORA WIDENS HER HORIZONXI. WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEENXII. WHICH CONTAINS A SURPRISE FOR MRS. HOLT

BOOK II

Volume 3. I. SO LONG AS YE BOTH SHALL LIVEII. "STAFFORD PARK"III. THE GREAT UNATTACHEDIV. THE NEW DOCTRINEV. QUICKSANDSVI. GAD AND MENI

Volume 4. VII. OF CERTAIN DELICATE MATTERSVIII. OF MENTAL PROCESSES-FEMININE AND INSOLUBLEIX. INTRODUCING A REVOLUTIONIZING VEHICLEX. ON THE ART OF LION TAMINGXI. CONTAINING SOME REVELATIONS

BOOK III

Volume 5. I. ASCENDIII. THE PATH OF PHILANTHROPYIII. VINELANDIV. THE VIKINGV. THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

Volume 6. VI. CLIO, OR THALIA?VII "LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS"VIII. IN WHICH THE LAW BETRAYS A HEARTIX. WYLIE STREETX. THE PRICE OF FREEDOM

Volume 7. XI. IN WHICH IT IS ALL DONE OVER AGAINXII. THE ENTRANCE INTO EDENXIII. OF THE WORLD BEYOND THE GATES. XIV. CONTAINING PHILOSOPHY FROM MR. GRAINGERXV. THE PILLARS OF SOCIETY

Volume 8. XVI. IN WHICH A MIRROR IS HELD UPXVII. THE RENEWAL OF AN ANCIENT HOSPITALITYXVIII. IN WHICH MR. ERWIN SEES PARIS

A MODERN CHRONICLE

CHAPTER I

WHAT'S IN HEREDITY

Honora Leffingwell is the original name of our heroine. She was born inthe last quarter of the Nineteenth Century, at Nice, in France, and shespent the early years of her life in St. Louis, a somewhat conservativeold city on the banks of the Mississippi River. Her father was RandolphLeffingwell, and he died in the early flower of his manhood, whilefilling with a grace that many remember the post of United States Consulat Nice. As a linguist he was a phenomenon, and his photograph in thetortoise-shell frame proves indubitably, to anyone acquainted with thefashions of 1870, that he was a master of that subtlest of all arts, dress. He had gentle blood in his veins, which came from Virginia throughKentucky in a coach and six, and he was the equal in appearance andmanners of any duke who lingered beside classic seas. 

Honora has often pictured to herself a gay villa set high above thecurving shore, the amethyst depths shading into emerald, laced withmilk-white foam, the vivid colours of the town, the gay costumes; theexcursions, the dinner-parties presided over by the immaculate youngconsul in three languages, and the guests chosen from the haute noblesseof Europe. Such was the vision in her youthful mind, added to by degreesas she grew into young-ladyhood and surreptitiously became familiar withthe writings of Ouida and the Duchess, and other literature of aneducating cosmopolitan nature. 

Honora's biography should undoubtedly contain a sketch of Mrs. RandolphLeffingwell. Beauty and dash and a knowledge of how to seat a table seemto have been the lady's chief characteristics; the only daughter of acarefully dressed and carefully, preserved widower, likewise alinguist, --whose super-refined tastes and the limited straits to whichhe, the remaining scion of an old Southern family, had been reduced by agentlemanly contempt for money, led him 'to choose Paris rather than NewYork as a place of residence. One of the occasional and carefully plannedtrips to the Riviera proved fatal to the beautiful but reckless MyrtleAllison. She, who might have chosen counts or dukes from the Tagus to theDanube, or even crossed the Channel; took the dashing but impecuniousAmerican consul, with a faith in his future that was sublime. Withoutgoing over too carefully the upward path which led to the post of theircountry's representative at the court of St. James, neither had theslightest doubt that Randolph Leffingwell would tread it. 

It is needless to dwell upon the chagrin of Honora's maternalgrandfather, Howard Allison Esquire, over this turn of affairs, thisunexpected bouleversement, as he spoke of it in private to his friends inhis Parisian club. For many years he had watched the personal attractionsof his daughter grow, and a brougham and certain other delights not to bementioned had gradually become, in his mind, synonymous with old age. Thebrougham would have on its panels the Allison crest, and hisdistinguished (and titled) son-in-law would drop in occasionally at thelittle apartment on the Boulevard Haussmann. Alas, for visions, forlegitimate hopes shattered forever! On the day that Randolph Leffingwellled Miss Allison down the aisle of the English church the vision of thebrougham and the other delights faded. Howard Allison went back to hisclub. 

Three years later, while on an excursion with Sir Nicholas Baker and amerry party on the Italian aide, the horses behind which Mr. And Mrs. Leffingwell were driving with their host ran away, and in the flightmanaged to precipitate the vehicle, and themselves, down the side of oneof the numerous deep valleys of the streams seeking the Mediterranean. Thus, by a singular caprice of destiny Honors was deprived of both herparents at a period which--some chose to believe--was the height of theircombined glories. Randolph Leffingwell lived long enough to be taken backto Nice, and to consign his infant daughter and sundry other unsolvedproblems to his brother Tom. 

Brother Tom--or Uncle Tom, as we must call him with Honora--cheerfullyaccepted the charge. For his legacies in life had been chiefly blessingsin disguise. He was paying teller of the Prairie Bank, and thethermometer registered something above 90 deg. Fahrenheit on the Julymorning when he stood behind his wicket reading a letter from HowardAllison, Esquire, relative to his niece. Mr. Leffingwell was at thisperiod of his life forty-eight, but the habit he had acquired of assumingresponsibilities and burdens seemed to have had the effect of making hisage indefinite. He was six feet tall, broad-shouldered, his mustache andhair already turning; his eyebrows were a trifle bushy, and his eyesreminded men of one eternal and highly prized quality--honesty. They wereblue grey. Ordinarily they shed a light which sent people away from hiswindow the happier without knowing why; but they had been known, on rareoccasions, to flash on dishonesty and fraud like the lightnings of theLord. Mr. Isham, the president of the bank, coined a phrase about him. Hesaid that Thomas Leffingwell was constitutionally honest. 

Although he had not risen above the position of paying teller, ThomasLeffingwell had a unique place in the city of his birth; and the esteemin which he was held by capitalists and clerks proves that charactercounts for something. On his father's failure and death he had enteredthe Prairie Bank, at eighteen, and never left it. If he had owned it, hecould not have been treated by the customers with more respect. The city, save for a few notable exceptions, like Mr. Isham, called him Mr. Leffingwell, but behind his back often spoke of him as Tom. 

On the particular hot morning in question, as he stood in his seersuckercoat reading the unquestionably pompous letter of Mr. Allison announcingthat his niece was on the high seas, he returned the greetings of hisfriends with his usual kindness and cheer. In an adjoining compartment along-legged boy of fourteen was busily stamping letters. 

"Peter, " said Mr. Leffingwell, "go ask Mr. Isham if I may see him. "

It is advisable to remember the boy's name. It was Peter Erwin, and hewas a favourite in the bank, where he had been introduced by Mr. Leffingwell himself. He was an orphan and lived with his grandmother, animpoverished old lady with good blood in her veins who boarded inGraham's Row, on Olive Street. Suffice it to add, at this time, that heworshipped Mr. Leffingwell, and that he was back in a twinkling with theinformation that Mr. Isham was awaiting him. 

The president was seated at his desk. In spite of the thermometer he gaveno appearance of discomfort in his frock-coat. He had scant, sandy-greywhiskers, a tightly closed and smooth-shaven upper lip, a nose with-adecided ridge, and rather small but penetrating eyes in which the bluepigment had been used sparingly. His habitual mode of speech was bothbrief and sharp, but people remarked that he modified it a little for TomLeffingwell. 

"Come in, Tom, " he said. "Anything the matter?"

"Mr. Isham, I want a week off, to go to New York. "

The request, from Tom Leffingwell, took Mr. Isham's breath. One of thebank president's characteristics was an extreme interest in the privateaffairs of those who came within his zone of influence and especiallywhen these affairs evinced any irregularity. 

"Randolph again?" he asked quickly. 

Tom walked to the window, and stood looking out into the street. Hisvoice shook as he answered:

"Ten days ago I learned that my brother was dead, Mr. Isham. "

The president glanced at the broad back of his teller. Mr. Isham's voicewas firm, his face certainly betrayed no feeling, but a flitting gleam ofsatisfaction might have been seen in his eye. 

"Of course, Tom, you may go, " he answered. 

Thus came to pass an event in the lives of Uncle Tom and Aunt Mary, thatjourney to New York (their first) of two nights and two days to fetchHonora. We need not dwell upon all that befell them. The first view ofthe Hudson, the first whiff of the salt air on this unwonted holiday, thesights of this crowded city of wealth, --all were tempered by the thoughtof the child coming into their lives. They were standing on the pier whenthe windows were crimson in the early light, and at nine o'clock on thatsummer's morning the Albania was docked, and the passengers came crowdingdown the gang-plank. Prosperous tourists, most of them, with servants andstewards carrying bags of English design and checked steamer rugs; and atlast a ruddy-faced bonne with streamers and a bundle of ribbons andlaces--Honora--Honora, aged eighteen months, gazing at a subjugatedworld. 

"What a beautiful child! exclaimed a woman on the pier. "

Was it instinct or premonition that led them to accost the bonne?

"Oui, Leffingwell!" she cried, gazing at them in some perplexity. Threechildren of various sizes clung to her skirts, and a younger nursecarried a golden-haired little girl of Honora's age. A lady and gentlemanfollowed. The lady was beginning to look matronly, and no second glancewas required to perceive that she was a person of opinion and character. Mr. Holt was smaller than his wife, neat in dress and unobtrusive inappearance. In the rich Mrs. Holt, the friend of the RandolphLeffingwells, Aunt Mary was prepared to find a more vapidly fashionablepersonage, and had schooled herself forthwith. 

"You are Mrs. Thomas Leffingwell?" she asked. "Well, I am relieved. " Thelady's eyes, travelling rapidly over Aunt Mary's sober bonnet and broochand gown, made it appear that these features in Honora's future guardiangave her the relief in question. "Honora, this is your aunt. "

Honora smiled from amidst the laces, and Aunt Mary, only too ready tocapitulate, surrendered. She held out her arms. Tears welled up in theFrenchwoman's eyes as she abandoned her charge. 

"Pauvre mignonne!" she cried. 

But Mrs. Holt rebuked the nurse sharply, in French, --a language withwhich neither Aunt Mary nor Uncle Tom was familiar. Fortunately, perhaps. Mrs. Holt's remark was to the effect that Honora was going to a sensiblehome. 

"Hortense loves her better than my own children, " said that lady. 

Honora seemed quite content in the arms of Aunt Mary, who was gazing soearnestly into the child's face that she did not at first hear Mrs. Holt's invitation to take breakfast with them on Madison Avenue, and thenshe declined politely. While grossing on the steamer, Mrs. Holt haddecided quite clearly in her mind just what she was going to say to thechild's future guardian, but there was something in Aunt Mary's voice andmanner which made these remarks seem unnecessary--although Mrs. Holt wassecretly disappointed not to deliver them. 

"It was fortunate that we happened to, be in Nice at the time, " she saidwith the evident feeling that some explanation was due. "I did not knowpoor Mrs. Randolph Leffingwell very--very intimately, or Mr. Leffingwell. It was such a sudden--such a terrible affair. But Mr. Holt and I wereonly too glad to do what we could. "

"We feel very grateful to you, " said Aunt Mary, quietly. 

Mrs. Holt looked at her with a still more distinct approval, beingtolerably sure that Mrs. Thomas Leffingwell understood. She had clearedher skirts of any possible implication of intimacy with the late Mrs. Randolph, and done so with a master touch. 

In the meantime Honora had passed to Uncle Tom. After securing the littletrunk, and settling certain matters with Mr. Holt, they said good-by toher late kind protectors, and started off for the nearest street-cars, Honora pulling Uncle Tom's mustache. More than one pedestrian paused tolook back at the tall man carrying the beautiful child, bedecked like ayoung princess, and more than one passenger in the street cars smiled atthem both. 

CHAPTER II

PERDITA RECALLED

Saint Louis, or that part of it which is called by dealers in real estatethe choice residence section, grew westward. And Uncle Tom might be saidto have been in the vanguard of the movement. In the days before Honorawas born he had built his little house on what had been a farm on theOlive Street Road, at the crest of the second ridge from the river. Upthis ridge, with clanking traces, toiled the horse-cars that carriedUncle Tom downtown to the bank and Aunt Mary to market. 

Fleeing westward, likewise, from the smoke, friends of Uncle Tom's andAunt Mary's gradually surrounded them--building, as a rule, the highVictorian mansions in favour at that period, which were placed in thecentre of commodious yards. For the friends of Uncle Tom and Aunt Marywere for the most part rich, and belonged, as did they, to the olderfamilies of the city. Mr. Dwyer's house, with its picture gallery, wasacross the street. 

In the midst of such imposing company the little dwelling which becamethe home of our heroine sat well back in a plot that might almost becalled a garden. In summer its white wooden front was nearly hidden bythe quivering leaves of two tall pear trees. On the other side of thebrick walk, and near the iron fence, was an elm and a flower bed that wasUncle Tom's pride and the admiration of the neighbourhood. Honora has butto shut her eyes to see it aflame with tulips at Eastertide. The easternwall of the house was a mass of Virginia creeper, and beneath thatanother flower bed, and still another in the back-yard behind the latticefence covered with cucumber vine. There were, besides, two maples and twoapricot trees, relics of the farm, and of blessed memory. Such apricots!Visions of hot summer evenings come back, with Uncle Tom, in hisseersucker coat, with his green watering-pot, bending over the beds, andAunt Mary seated upright in her chair, looking up from her knitting witha loving eye. 

Behind the lattice, on these summer evenings, stands the militant figureof that old retainer, Bridget the cook, her stout arms akimbo, ready toengage in vigorous banter should Honora deign to approach. 

"Whisht, 'Nora darlint, it's a young lady yell be soon, and the beauxa-comin' 'round!" she would cry, and throw back her head and laugh untilthe tears were in her eyes. 

And the princess, a slim figure in an immaculate linen frock with redribbons which Aunt Mary had copied from Longstreth's London catalogue, would reply with dignity:

"Bridget, I wish you would try to remember that my name is Honora. "

Another spasm of laughter from Bridget. 

"Listen to that now!" she would cry to another ancient retainer, MaryAnn, the housemaid, whose kitchen chair was tilted up against the side ofthe woodshed. "It'll be Miss Honora next, and George Hanbury here to-daywith his eye through a knothole in the fence, out of his head for a sightof ye. "

George Hanbury was Honora's cousin, and she did not deem his admiration asubject fit for discussion with Bridget. 

"Sure, " declared Mary Ann, "it's the air of a princess the child has. "

That she should be thought a princess did not appear at all remarkable toHonora at twelve years of age. Perdita may have had such dreams. She hadbeen born, she knew, in some wondrous land by the shores of the summerseas, not at all like St. Louis, and friends and relatives had nothesitated to remark in her hearing that she resembled--her father, --thathandsome father who surely must have been a prince, whose before-mentionedphotograph in the tortoise-shell frame was on the bureau in her littleroom. So far as Randolph Leffingwell was concerned, photography had notbeen invented for nothing. Other records of him remained which Honora hadlikewise seen: one end of a rose-covered villa--which Honora thought wasa wing of his palace; a coach and four he was driving, and which hadchanced to belong to an Englishman, although the photograph gave noevidence of this ownership. Neither Aunt Mary nor Uncle Tom had eversought--for reasons perhaps obvious--to correct the child's impression ofan extraordinary paternity. 

Aunt Mary was a Puritan of Southern ancestry, and her father had been aPresbyterian minister, Uncle Tom was a member of the vestry of a churchstill under Puritan influences. As a consequence for Honora, there wereSunday afternoons--periods when the imaginative faculty, in which she wasby no means lacking, was given full play. She would sit by the hour inthe swing Uncle Tom had hung for her under the maple near the lattice, while castles rose on distant heights against blue skies. There was herreal home, in a balconied chamber that overlooked mile upon mile ofrustling forest in the valley; and when the wind blew, the sound of itwas like the sea. Honora did not remember the sea, but its music wasoften in her ears. 

She would be aroused from these dreams of greatness by the appearance ofold Catherine, her nurse, on the side porch, reminding her that it wastime to wash for supper. No princess could have had a more humbletiring-woman than Catherine. 

Honora cannot be unduly blamed. When she reached the "little house underthe hill" (as Catherine called the chamber beneath the eaves), she beheldreflected in the mirror an image like a tall, white flower that mightindeed have belonged to a princess. Her hair, the colour of burnt sienna, fell evenly to her shoulders; her features even then had regularity andhauteur; her legs, in their black silk stockings, were straight; and thesimple white lawn frock made the best of a slender figure. Those frocksof Honora's were a continual source of wonder and sometimes of envy--toAunt Mary's friends; who returned from the seaside in the autumn, after aweek among the fashions in Boston or New York, to find Honora in thelatest models, and better dressed than their own children. Aunt Mary madeno secret of the methods by which these seeming miracles were performed, and showed Cousin Eleanor Hanbury the fashion plates in the Englishperiodicals. Cousin Eleanor sighed. 

"Mary, you are wonderful, " she would say. "Honora's clothes arebetter-looking than those I buy in the East, at such fabulous prices, from Cavendish. "

Indeed, no woman was ever farther removed from personal vanity than AuntMary. She looked like a little Quakeress. Her silvered hair was parted inthe middle and had, in spite of palpable efforts towards tightness andrepression, a perceptible ripple in it. Grey was her only concession tocolour, and her gowns and bonnets were of a primness which belonged tothe past. Repression, or perhaps compression, was her note, for theenergy confined within her little body was a thing to have astoundedscientists: And Honora grew to womanhood and reflection before she had. Guessed or considered that her aunt was possessed of intense emotionswhich had no outlet. Her features were regular, her shy eye had theclearness of a forest pool. She believed in predestination, which is tosay that she was a fatalist; and while she steadfastly continued toregard this world as a place of sorrow and trials, she concerned herselfvery little about her participation in a future life. Old Dr. Ewing, therector of St. Anne's, while conceding that no better or more charitablewoman existed, found it so exceedingly difficult to talk to her, on thesubject of religion that he had never tried it but once. 

Such was Aunt Mary. The true student of human nature should not find itsurprising that she spoiled Honora and strove--at what secret expense, care, and self-denial to Uncle Tom and herself, none will ever know--toadorn the child that she might appear creditably among companions whoseparents were more fortunate in this world's goods; that she deniedherself to educate Honora as these other children were educated. Nor isit astonishing that she should not have understood the highly complexorganism of the young lady we have chosen for our heroine, who wasshaken, at the age of thirteen, by unfulfilled longings. 

Very early in life Honora learned to dread the summer, when one by onethe families of her friends departed until the city itself seemed aremote and distant place from what it had been in the spring and winter. The great houses were closed and blinded, and in the evening the servantswho had been left behind chattered on the front steps. Honora could notbear the sound of the trains that drifted across the night, and the sightof the trunks piled in the Hanburys' hall, in Wayland Square, alwaysfilled her with a sickening longing. Would the day ever come when she, too, would depart for the bright places of the earth? Sometimes, when shelooked in the mirror, she was filled with a fierce belief in a destiny tosit in the high seats, to receive homage and dispense bounties, todiscourse with great intellects, to know London and Paris and the martsand centres of the world as her father had. To escape--only to escapefrom the prison walls of a humdrum existence, and to soar!

Let us, if we can, reconstruct an August day when all (or nearly all) ofHonora's small friends were gone eastward to the mountains or theseaside. In "the little house under the hill, " the surface of which was ahot slate roof, Honora would awake about seven o'clock to find oldCatherine bending over her in a dun-coloured calico dress, with the lightfiercely beating against the closed shutters that braved it sounflinchingly throughout the day. 

"The birds are before ye, Miss Honora, honey, and your uncle waterin' hisroses this half-hour. "

Uncle Tom was indeed an early riser. As Honora dressed (Catherineassisting as at a ceremony), she could see him, in his seersucker coat, bending tenderly over his beds; he lived enveloped in a peace which hassince struck wonder to Honora's soul. She lingered in her dressing, evenin those days, falling into reveries from which Catherine gently anddeferentially aroused her; and Uncle Tom would be carving the beefsteakand Aunt Mary pouring the coffee when she finally arrived in the diningroom to nibble at one of Bridget's unforgettable rolls or hot biscuits. Uncle Tom had his joke, and at quarter-past eight precisely he would kissAunt Mary and walk to the corner to wait for the ambling horse-car thatwas to take him to the bank. Sometimes Honora went to the corner withhim, and he waved her good-by from the platform as he felt in his pocketfor the nickel that was to pay his fare. 

When Honora returned, Aunt Mary had donned her apron, and wasindustriously aiding Mary Ann to wash the dishes and maintain thecustomary high polish on her husband's share of the Leffingwell silverwhich, standing on the side table, shot hither and thither rays of greenlight that filtered through the shutters into the darkened room. Thechild partook of Aunt Mary's pride in that silver, made for a Kentuckygreat-grandfather Leffingwell by a famous Philadelphia silversmiththree-quarters of a century before. Honora sighed. 

"What's the matter, Honora?" asked Aunt Mary, without pausing in hervigorous rubbing. 

"The Leffingwells used to be great once upon a time, didn't they, AuntMary?"

"Your Uncle Tom, " answered Aunt Mary, quietly, "is the greatest man Iknow, child. "

"And my father must have been a great man, too, " cried Honora, "to havebeen a consul and drive coaches. "

Aunt Mary was silent. She was not a person who spoke easily on difficultsubjects. 

"Why don't you ever talk to me about my father, Aunt Mary? Uncle Tomdoes. "

"I didn't know your father, Honora. "

"But you have seen him?"

"Yes, " said Aunt Mary, dipping her cloth into the whiting; "I saw him atmy wedding. But he was very, young. "

"What was he like?" Honora demanded. "He was very handsome, wasn't he?"

'Yes, child. "

"And he had ambition, didn't he, Aunt Mary?"

Aunt Mary paused. Her eyes were troubled as she looked at Honora, whosehead was thrown back. 

"What kind of ambition do you mean, Honora?"

"Oh, " cried Honora, "to be great and rich and powerful, and to besomebody. "

"Who has been putting such things in your head, my dear?"

"No one, Aunt Mary. Only, if I were a man, I shouldn't rest until Ibecame great. "

Alas, that Aunt Mary, with all her will, should have such limited powersof expression! She resumed her scrubbing of the silver before she spoke. 

"To do one's duty, to accept cheerfully and like a Christian theresponsibilities and burdens of life, is the highest form of greatness, my child. Your Uncle Tom has had many things to trouble him; he hasalways worked for others, and not for himself. And he is respected andloved by all who know him. "

"Yes, I know, Aunt Mary. But--"

"But what, Honora?"

"Then why isn't he rich, as my father was?"

"Your father wasn't rich, my dear, " said Aunt Mary, sadly. 

"Why, Aunt Mary!" Honora exclaimed, "he lived in a beautiful house, andowned horses. Isn't that being rich?"

Poor Aunt Mary!

"Honora, " she answered, "there are some things you are too young tounderstand. But try to remember, my dear, that happiness doesn't consistin being rich. "

"But I have often heard you say that you wished you were rich, Aunt Mary, and had nice things, and a picture gallery like Mr. Dwyer. "

"I should like to have beautiful pictures, Honora. "

"I don't like Mr. Dwyer, " declared Honora, abruptly. 

"You mustn't say that, Honora, " was Aunt Mary's reproof. "Mr. Dwyer is anupright, public-spirited man, and he thinks a great deal of your UncleTom. "

"I can't help it, Aunt Mary, " said Honora. "I think he enjoys being--well, being able to do things for a man like Uncle Tom. "

Neither Aunt Mary nor Honora guessed what a subtle criticism this was ofMr. Dwyer. Aunt Mary was troubled and puzzled; and she began to speculate(not for the first time) why the Lord had given a person with so littleimagination a child like Honora to bring up in the straight and narrowpath. 

"When I go on Sunday afternoons with Uncle Tom to see Mr. Dwyer'spictures, " Honora persisted, "I always feel that he is so glad to havewhat other people haven't or he wouldn't have any one to show them to. "

Aunt Mary shook her head. Once she had given her loyal friendship, suchfaults as this became as nothing. 

"And when" said Honora, "when Mrs. Dwyer has dinner-parties forcelebrated people who come here, why does she invite you in to see thetable?"

"Out of kindness, Honora. Mrs. Dwyer knows that I enjoy looking atbeautiful things. "

"Why doesn't she invite you to the dinners?" asked Honora, hotly. "Ourfamily is just as good as Mrs. Dwyer's. "

The extent of Aunt Mary's distress was not apparent. 

"You are talking nonsense, my child, " she said. "All my friends know thatI am not a person who can entertain distinguished people, and that I donot go out, and that I haven't the money to buy evening dresses. And evenif I had, " she added, "I haven't a pretty neck, so it's just as well. "

A philosophy distinctly Aunt Mary's. 

Uncle Tom, after he had listened without comment that evening to heraccount of this conversation, was of the opinion that to take Honora totask for her fancies would be waste of breath; that they would rightthemselves as she grew up. 

"I'm afraid it's inheritance, Tom, " said Aunt Mary, at last. "And if so, it ought to be counteracted. We've seen other signs of it. You knowHonora has little or no idea of the value of money--or of its ownership. "

"She sees little enough of it, " Uncle Tom remarked with a smile. 

"Tom. "

"Well. "

"Sometimes I think I've done wrong not to dress her more simply. I'mafraid it's given the child a taste for--for self-adornment. "

"I once had a fond belief that all women possessed such a taste, " saidUncle Tom, with a quizzical look at his own exception. "To tell you thetruth, I never classed it as a fault. "

"Then I don't see why you married me, " said Aunt Mary--a periodicalremark of hers. "But, Tom, I do wish her to appear as well as the otherchildren, and (Aunt Mary actually blushed) the child has good looks. "

"Why don't you go as far as old Catherine, and call her a princess?" heasked. 

"Do you want me to ruin her utterly?" exclaimed Aunt Mary. 

Uncle Tom put his hands on his wife's shoulders and looked down into herface, and smiled again. Although she held herself very straight, the topof her head was very little above the level of his chin. 

"It strikes me that you are entitled to some little indulgence in life, Mary, " he said. 

One of the curious contradictions of Aunt Mary's character was a neverdying interest, which held no taint of envy, in the doings of people morefortunate than herself. In the long summer days, after her silver wascleaned and her housekeeping and marketing finished, she read in thebook-club periodicals of royal marriages, embassy balls, of great townand country houses and their owners at home and abroad. And she knew, bymeans of a correspondence with Cousin Eleanor Hanbury and otherintimates, the kind of cottages in which her friends sojourned at theseashore or in the mountains; how many rooms they had, and how manyservants, and very often who the servants were; she was likewise informedon the climate, and the ease with which it was possible to obtain freshvegetables. And to all of this information Uncle Tom would listen, smiling but genuinely interested, while he carved at dinner. 

One evening, when Uncle Tom had gone to play piquet with Mr. Isham, whowas ill, Honora further surprised her aunt by exclaiming: "How can youtalk of things other people have and not want them, Aunt Mary?"

"Why should I desire what I cannot have, my dear? I take such pleasureout of my friends' possessions as I can. "

"But you want to go to the seashore, I know you do. I've heard you sayso, " Honora protested. 

"I should like to see the open ocean before I die, " admitted Aunt Mary, unexpectedly. "I saw New York harbour once, when we went to meet you. AndI know how the salt water smells--which is as much, perhaps, as I havethe right to hope for. But I have often thought it would be nice to sitfor a whole summer by the sea and listen to the waves dashing upon thebeach, like those in the Chase picture in Mr. Dwyer's gallery. "

Aunt Mary little guessed the unspeakable rebellion aroused in Honora bythis acknowledgment of being fatally circumscribed. Wouldn't Uncle Tomever be rich?

Aunt Mary shook her head--she saw no prospect of it. 

But other men, who were not half so good as Uncle Tom, got rich. 

Uncle Tom was not the kind of man who cared for riches. He was content todo his duty in that sphere where God had placed him. 

Poor Aunt Mary. Honora never asked her uncle such questions: to do sonever occurred to her. At peace with all men, he gave of his best tochildren, and Honora remained a child. Next to his flowers, walking wasUncle Tom's chief recreation, and from the time she could be guided bythe hand she went with him. His very presence had the gift of dispellinglongings, even in the young; the gift of compelling delight in simplethings. Of a Sunday afternoon, if the heat were not too great, he wouldtake Honora to the wild park that stretches westward of the city, andsomething of the depth and intensity of his pleasure in the birds, theforest, and the wild flowers would communicate itself to her. She learnedall unconsciously (by suggestion, as it were) to take delight in them; adelight that was to last her lifetime, a never failing resource to whichshe was to turn again and again. In winter, they went to the botanicalgardens or the Zoo. Uncle Tom had a passion for animals, and Mr. Isham, who was a director, gave him a pass through the gates. The keepers knewhim, and spoke to him with kindly respect. Nay, it seemed to Honora thatthe very animals knew him, and offered themselves ingratiatingly to bestroked by one whom they recognized as friend. Jaded horses in the streetlifted their noses; stray, homeless cats rubbed against his legs, andvagrant dogs looked up at him trustfully with wagging tails. 

Yet his goodness, as Emerson would have said, had some edge to it. Honorahad seen the light of anger in his blue eye--a divine ray. Once he hadchastised her for telling Aunt Mary a lie (she could not have lied tohim) and Honora had never forgotten it. The anger of such a man hadindeed some element in it of the divine; terrible, not in volume, but inrighteous intensity. And when it had passed there was no occasion forfuture warning. The memory of it lingered. 

CHAPTER III

CONCERNING PROVIDENCE

What quality was it in Honora that compelled Bridget to stop her ironingon Tuesdays in order to make hot waffles for a young woman who was lateto breakfast? Bridget, who would have filled the kitchen with righteouswrath if Aunt Mary had transgressed the rules of the house, which werelike the laws of the Medes and Persians! And in Honora's early youth MaryAnn, the housemaid, spent more than one painful evening writing home forcockle shells and other articles to propitiate our princess, who rewardedher with a winning smile and a kiss, which invariably melted the honestgirl into tears. The Queen of Scots never had a more devoted chamberwoman than old Catherine, --who would have gone to the stake with a smileto save her little lady a single childish ill, and who spent her savings, until severely taken to task by Aunt Mary, upon objects for which acasual wish had been expressed. The saints themselves must at times havebeen aweary from hearing Honora's name. 

Not to speak of Christmas! Christmas in the little house was one wilddelirium of joy. The night before the festival was, to all outwardappearances, an ordinary evening, when Uncle Tom sat by the fire in hisslippers, as usual, scouting the idea that there would be any Christmasat all. Aunt Mary sewed, and talked with maddening calmness of the newsof the day; but for Honora the air was charged with coming events of thefirst magnitude. The very furniture of the little sitting-room had adifferent air, the room itself wore a mysterious aspect, and thecannel-coal fire seemed to give forth a special quality of unearthlylight. 

"Is to-morrow Christmas?" Uncle Tom would exclaim. Bless me! Honora, I amso glad you reminded me. "

"Now, Uncle Tom, you knew it was Christmas all the time!"

"Kiss your uncle good night, Honora, and go right to sleep, dear, "--fromAunt Mary. 

The unconscious irony in that command of Aunt Mary's!--to go right tosleep! Many times was a head lifted from a small pillow, straining afterthe meaning of the squeaky noises that came up from below! Not SantaClaus. Honora's belief in him had merged into a blind faith in a largerand even more benevolent, if material providence: the kind of providencewhich Mr. Meredith depicts, and which was to say to Beauchamp: "Here'syour marquise;" a particular providence which, at the proper time, gaveUncle Tom money, and commanded, with a smile, "Buy this for Honora--shewants it. " All-sufficient reason! Soul-satisfying philosophy, to whichHonora was to cling for many years of life. It is amazing how much can bewrung from a reluctant world by the mere belief in this kind ofprovidence. 

Sleep came at last, in the darkest of the hours. And still in the darkhours a stirring, a delicious sensation preceding reason, and theconsciousness of a figure stealing about the room. Honora sat up in bed, shivering with cold and delight. 

"Is it awake ye are, darlint, and it but four o'clock the morn!"

"What are you doing, Cathy?"

"Musha, it's to Mass I'm going, to ask the Mother of God to give ye manyhappy Christmases the like of this, Miss Honora. " And Catherine's armswere about her. 

"Oh, it's Christmas, Cathy, isn't it? How could I have forgotten it!"

"Now go to sleep, honey. Your aunt and uncle wouldn't like it at all atall if ye was to make noise in the middle of the night--and it's littlebetter it is. "

Sleep! A despised waste of time in childhood. Catherine went to Mass, andafter an eternity, the grey December light began to sift through theshutters, and human endurance had reached its limit. Honora, stillshivering, seized a fleecy wrapper (the handiwork of Aunt Mary) andcrept, a diminutive ghost, down the creaking stairway to thesitting-room. A sitting-room which now was not a sitting-room, but forto-day a place of magic. As though by a prearranged salute of thegods, --at Honora's entrance the fire burst through the thick blanket offine coal which Uncle Tom had laid before going to bed, and with a littlegasp of joy that was almost pain, she paused on the threshold. That oneflash, like Pizarro's first sunrise over Peru, gilded the edge ofinfinite possibilities. 

Needless to enumerate them. The whole world, as we know, was in aconspiracy to spoil Honora. The Dwyers, the Cartwrights, the Haydens, theBrices, the Ishams, and I know not how many others had sent theirtributes, and Honora's second cousins, the Hanburys, from the familymansion behind the stately elms of Wayland Square--of which somethinganon. A miniature mahogany desk, a prayer-book and hymnal which theDwyers had brought home from New York, endless volumes of a more secularand (to Honora) entrancing nature; roller skates; skates for real ice, when it should appear in the form of sleet on the sidewalks; a sled;humbler gifts from Bridget, Mary Ann, and Catherine, and a wonderfulcoat, with hat to match, of a certain dark green velvet. When Aunt Maryappeared, an hour or so later, Honora was surveying her magnificence inthe glass. 

"Oh, Aunt Mary!" she cried, with her arms tightly locked around heraunt's neck, "how lovely! Did you send all the way to New York for it?"

"No, Honora, " said her aunt, "it didn't come from New York. " Aunt Marydid not explain that this coat had been her one engrossing occupation forsix weeks, at such times when Honora was out or tucked away safely inbed. 

Perhaps Honora's face fell a little. Aunt Mary scanned it ratheranxiously. 

"Does that cause you to like it any less, Honora?" she asked. 

"Aunt Mary!" exclaimed Honora, in a tone of reproval. And added after alittle, "I suppose Mademoiselle made it. "

"Does it make any difference who made it, Honora?"

"Oh, no indeed, Aunt Mary. May I wear it to Cousin Eleanor's to-day?"

"I gave it to you to wear, Honora. "

Not in Honora's memory was there a Christmas breakfast during which PeterErwin did not appear, bringing gifts. Peter Erwin, of whom we caught aglimpse doing an errand for Uncle Tom in the bank. With the complacencyof the sun Honora was wont to regard this most constant of hersatellites. Her awakening powers of observation had discovered him inbondage, and in bondage he had been ever since: for their acquaintancehad begun on the first Sunday afternoon after Honora's arrival in St. Louis at the age of eighteen months. It will be remembered that Honorawas even then a coquette, and as she sat in her new baby-carriage underthe pear tree, flirted outrageously with Peter, who stood on one footfrom embarrassment. 

"Why, Peter, " Uncle Tom had said slyly, "why don't you kiss her?"

That kiss had been Peter's seal of service. And he became, on Sundayafternoons, a sort of understudy for Catherine. He took an amazingdelight in wheeling Honora up and down the yard, and up and down thesidewalk. Brunhilde or Queen Elizabeth never wielded a power moreabsolute, nor had an adorer more satisfactory; and of all his remarkabletalents, none were more conspicuous than his abilities to tell a storyand to choose a present. Emancipated from the perambulator, Honora wouldwatch for him at the window, and toddle to the gate to meet him, agentleman-in-waiting whose zeal, however arduous, never flagged. 

On this particular Christmas morning, when she heard the gate slam, Honora sprang up from the table to don her green velvet coat. Poor Peter!As though his subjugation could be more complete!

"It's the postman, " suggested Uncle Tom, wickedly. 

"It's Peter!" cried Honora, triumphantly, from the hall as she flunk openthe door, letting in a breath of cold Christmas air out of the sunlight. 

It was Peter, but a Peter who has changed some since perambulator days, --just as Honora has changed some. A Peter who, instead of fourteen, issix and twenty; a full-fledged lawyer, in the office of that mostcelebrated of St. Louis practitioners, Judge Stephen Brice. For the PeterErwins of this world are queer creatures, and move rapidly withoutappearing to the Honoras to move at all. A great many things havehappened to Peter since he had been a messenger boy in the bank. 

Needless to say, Uncle Tom had taken an interest in him. And, accordingto Peter, this fact accounted for all the good fortune which hadfollowed. Shortly before the news came of his brother's death, Uncle Tomhad discovered that the boy who did his errands so willingly was going tonight school, and was the grandson of a gentleman who had fought withcredit in the Mexican War, and died in misfortune: the grandmother wasPeter's only living relative. Through Uncle Tom, Mr. Isham becameinterested, and Judge Brice. There was a certain scholarship in theWashington University which Peter obtained, and he worked his way throughthe law school afterwards. 

A simple story, of which many a duplicate could be found in this countryof ours. In the course of the dozen years or so of its unravelling thegrandmother had died, and Peter had become, to all intents and purposes, a member of Uncle Tom's family. A place was set for him at Sunday dinner;and, if he did not appear, at Sunday tea. Sometimes at both. And here hewas, as usual, on Christmas morning, his arms so full that he had had topush open the gate with his foot. 

"Well, well, well, well!" he said, stopping short on the doorstep andsurveying our velvet-clad princess, "I've come to the wrong house. "

The princess stuck her finger into her cheek. 

"Don't be silly, Peter!" she said; and Merry Christmas!"

"Merry Christmas!" he replied, edging sidewise in at the door anddepositing his parcels on the mahogany horsehair sofa. He chose one, andseized the princess--velvet coat and all!--in his arms and kissed her. When he released her, there remained in her hand a morocco-bound diary, marked with her monogram, and destined to contain high matters. 

"How could you know what I wanted, Peter?" she exclaimed, after she haddivested it of the tissue paper, holly, and red ribbon in which he had socarefully wrapped it. For it is a royal trait to thank with the samegraciousness and warmth the donors of the humblest and the greatestofferings. 

There was a paper-knife for Uncle Tom, and a workbasket for Aunt Mary, and a dress apiece for Catherine, Bridget, and Mary Ann, none of whomPeter ever forgot. Although the smoke was even at that period beginningto creep westward, the sun poured through the lace curtains into thelittle dining-room and danced on the silver coffeepot as Aunt Mary pouredout Peter's cup, and the blue china breakfast plates were bluer than everbecause it was Christmas. The humblest of familiar articles took on theair of a present. And after breakfast, while Aunt Mary occupied herselfwith that immemorial institution, --which was to lure hitherwards so manyprominent citizens of St. Louis during the day, --eggnogg, Peter surveyedthe offerings which transformed the sitting-room. The table had beenpushed back against the bookcases, the chairs knew not theirtime-honoured places, and white paper and red ribbon littered the floor. Uncle Tom, relegated to a corner, pretended to read his newspaper, whileHonora flitted from Peter's knees to his, or sat cross-legged on thehearth-rug investigating a bottomless stocking. 

"What in the world are we going to do with all these things?" said Peter. 

"We?" cried Honora. 

"When we get married, I mean, " said Peter, smiling at Uncle Tom. "Let'ssee!" and he began counting on his fingers, which were long but verystrong--so strong that Honora could never loosen even one of them whenthey gripped her. "One--two--three--eight Christmases before you aretwenty-one. We'll have enough things to set us up in housekeeping. Orperhaps you'd rather get married when you are eighteen?"

"I've always told you I wasn't going to marry you, Peter, " said Honora, with decision. 

"Why by not?" He always asked that question. 

Honora sighed. 

"I'll make a good husband, " said Peter; "I'll promise. Ugly men arealways good husbands. "

"I didn't say you were ugly, " declared the ever considerate Honora. 

"Only my nose is too big, " he quoted; "and I am too long one way and notwide enough. "

"You have a certain air of distinction in spite of it, " said Honora. 

Uncle Tom's newspaper began to shake, and he read more industriously thanever. 

"You've been reading--novels!" said Peter, in a terrible judicial voice. 

Honora flushed guiltily, and resumed her inspection of the stocking. MissRossiter, a maiden lady of somewhat romantic tendencies, was librarian ofthe Book Club that year. And as a result a book called "Harold's Quest, "by an author who shall be nameless, had come to the house. And it wasHarold who had had "a certain air of distinction. "

"It isn't very kind of you to make fun of me when I pay you acompliment, " replied Honora, with dignity. 

"I was naturally put out, " he declared gravely, "because you said youwouldn't marry me. But I don't intend to give up. No man who is worth hissalt ever gives up. "

"You are old enough to get married now, " said Honora, still considerate. 

"But I am not rich enough, " said Peter; "and besides, I want you. "

One of the first entries in the morocco diary--which had a lock and keyto it--was a description of Honora's future husband. We cannot violatethe lock, nor steal the key from under her pillow. But this much, alas, may be said with discretion, that he bore no resemblance to Peter Erwin. It may be guessed, however, that he contained something of Harold, andmore of Randolph Leffingwell; and that he did not live in St. Louis. 

An event of Christmas, after church, was the dinner of which Uncle Tomand Aunt Mary and Honora partook with Cousin Eleanor Hanbury, who hadbeen a Leffingwell, and was a first cousin of Honora's father. Honoraloved the atmosphere of the massive, yellow stone house in WaylandSquare, with its tall polished mahogany doors and thick carpets, with itsdeferential darky servants, some of whom had been the slaves of her greatuncle. To Honora, gifted with imagination, the house had an odour all itsown; a rich, clean odour significant, in later life, of wealth and luxuryand spotless housekeeping. And she knew it from top to bottom. Thespacious upper floor, which in ordinary dwellings would have been anattic, was the realm of young George and his sisters, Edith and Mary(Aunt Mary's namesake). Rainy Saturdays, all too brief, Honora had passedthere, when the big dolls' house in the playroom became the scene ofdomestic dramas which Edith rehearsed after she went to bed, althoughMary took them more calmly. In his tenderer years, Honora even firedGeorge, and riots occurred which took the combined efforts of CousinEleanor and Mammy Lucy to quell. It may be remarked, in passing, thatCousin Eleanor looked with suspicion upon this imaginative gift ofHonora's, and had several serious conversations with Aunt Mary on thesubject. 

It was true, in a measure, that Honora quickened to life everything shetouched, and her arrival in Wayland Square was invariably greeted withshouts of joy. There was no doll on which she had not bestowed a history, and by dint of her insistence their pasts clung to them with all thereality of a fate not by any means to be lived down. If George rode thehuge rocking-horse, he was Paul Revere, or some equally historic figure, and sometimes, to Edith's terror, he was compelled to assume the role ofBluebeard, when Honora submitted to decapitation with a fortitudeamounting to stoicism. Hide and seek was altogether too tame for her, astake of life and death, or imprisonment or treasure, being a necessity. And many times was Edith extracted from the recesses of the cellar in acondition bordering on hysterics, the day ending tamely with a Biblestory or a selection from "Little Women" read by Cousin Eleanor. 

In autumn, and again in spring and early summer before the annualdeparture of the Hanbury family for the sea, the pleasant yard with itswide shade trees and its shrubbery was a land of enchantment threatenedby a genie. Black Bias, the family coachman, polishing the fat carriagehorses in the stable yard, was the genie; and George the intrepid knightwho, spurred by Honora, would dash in and pinch Bias in a part of hisanatomy which the honest darky had never seen. An ideal genie, for hecould assume an astonishing fierceness at will. 

"I'll git you yit, Marse George!"

Had it not been for Honora, her cousins would have found the paradise inwhich they lived a commonplace spot, and indeed they never could realizeits tremendous possibilities in her absence. What would the MediterraneanSea and its adjoining countries be to us unless the wanderings of Ulyssesand AEneas had made them real? And what would Cousin Eleanor's yard havebeen without Honora? Whatever there was of romance and folklore in UncleTom's library Honora had extracted at an early age, and with astonishingease had avoided that which was dry and uninteresting. The result was anomenclature for Aunt Eleanor's yard, in which there was even a terraincognita wherefrom venturesome travellers never returned, but weretransformed into wild beasts or monkeys. 

Although they acknowledged her leadership, Edith and Mary were sorry forHonora, for they knew that if her father had lived she would have had ahouse and garden like theirs, only larger, and beside a blue sea where itwas warm always. Honora had told them so, and colour was lent to herassertions by the fact that their mother, when they repeated this to her, only smiled sadly, and brushed her eyes with her handkerchief. She waseven more beautiful when she did so, Edith told her, --a remark whichcaused Mrs. Hanbury to scan her younger daughter closely; it smacked ofHonora. 

"Was Cousin Randolph handsome?" Edith demanded. Mrs. Hanbury started, sovividly there arose before her eyes a brave and dashing figure, clad ingrey English cloth, walking by her side on a sunny autumn morning in theRue de la Paix. Well she remembered that trip abroad with her mother, Randolph's aunt, and how attentive he was, and showed them the bestrestaurants in which to dine. He had only been in France a short time, but his knowledge of restaurants and the world in general had beenamazing, and his acquaintances legion. He had a way, which there was noresisting, of taking people by storm. 

"Yes, dear, " answered Mrs. Hanbury, absently, when the child repeated thequestion, "he was very handsome. "

"Honora says he would have been President, " put in George. "Of course Idon't believe it. She said they lived in a palace by the sea in the southof France, with gardens and fountains and a lot of things like that, andprincesses and princes and eunuchs--"

"And what!" exclaimed Mrs. Hanbury, aghast. 

"I know, " said George, contemptuously, "she got that out of the ArabianNights. " But this suspicion did not prevent him, the next time Honoraregaled them with more adventures of the palace by the summer seas, fromlistening with a rapt attention. No two tales were ever alike. Hisadmiration for Honora did not wane, but increased. It differed from thatof his sisters, however, in being a tribute to her creative faculties, while Edith's breathless faith pictured her cousin as having passedthrough as many adventures as Queen Esther. George paid her acharacteristic compliment, but chivalrously drew her aside to bestow it. He was not one to mince matters. 

"You're a wonder, Honora, " he said. "If I could lie like that, I wouldn'twant a pony. "

He was forced to draw back a little from the heat of the conflagration hehad kindled. 

"George Hanbury, " she cried, "don't you ever speak to me again! Never! Doyou understand?"

It was thus that George, at some cost, had made a considerable discoverywhich, for the moment, shook even his scepticism. Honora believed it allherself. 

Cousin Eleanor Hanbury was a person, or personage, who took a deep andabiding interest in her fellow-beings, and the old clothes of the Hanburyfamily went unerringly to the needy whose figures most resembled those ofthe original owners. For Mrs. Hanbury had a wide but comparativelyunknown charity list. She was, secretly, one of the many providence whichHonora accepted collectively, although it is by no means certain whetherHonora, at this period, would have thanked her cousin for tuition at MissFarmer's school, and for her daily tasks at French and music concerningwhich Aunt Mary was so particular. On the memorable Christmas morningwhen, arrayed in green velvet, she arrived with her aunt and uncle fordinner in Wayland Square, Cousin Eleanor drew Aunt Mary into her bedroomand shut the door, and handed her a sealed envelope. Without opening it, but guessing with much accuracy its contents, Aunt Mary handed it back. 

"You are doing too much, Eleanor, " she said. 

Mrs. Hanbury was likewise a direct person. 

"I will, take it back on one condition, Mary. If you will tell me thatTom has finished paying Randolph's debts. "

Mrs. Leffingwell was silent. 

"I thought not, " said Mrs. Hanbury. "Now Randolph was my own cousin, andI insist. "

Aunt Mary turned over the envelope, and there followed a few moments'silence, broken only by the distant clamour of tin horns and othermusical instruments of the season. 

"I sometimes think, Mary, that Honora is a little like Randolph, and-Mrs. Randolph. Of course, I did not know her. "

"Neither did I, " said Aunt Mary. 

"Mary, " said Mrs. Hanbury, again, "I realize how you worked to make thechild that velvet coat. Do you think you ought to dress her that way?"

"I don't see why she shouldn't be as well dressed as the children of myfriends, Eleanor. "

Mrs. Hanbury laid her hand impulsively on Aunt Mary's. 

"No child I know of dresses half as well, " said Mrs. Hanbury. "Thetrouble you take--"

"Is rewarded, " said Aunt Mary. 

"Yes, " Mrs. Hanbury agreed. "If my own daughters were half as goodlooking, I should be content. And Honora has an air of race. Oh, Mary, can't you see? I am only thinking of the child's future. "

"Do you expect me to take down all my mirrors, Eleanor? If she has goodlooks, " said Aunt Mary, "she has not learned it from my lips. "

It was true: Even Aunt Mary's enemies, and she had some, could not accuseher of the weakness of flattery. So Mrs. Hanbury smiled, and dropped thesubject. 

CHAPTER IV

OF TEMPERAMENT

We have the word of Mr. Cyrus Meeker that Honora did not have to learn todance. The art came to her naturally. Of Mr. Cyrus Meeker, whosemustaches, at the age of five and sixty, are waxed as tight as ever, andwhose little legs to-day are as nimble as of yore. He has a memory likeMr. Gladstone's, and can give you a social history of the city that iswell worth your time and attention. He will tell you how, for instance, he was kicked by the august feet of Mr. George Hanbury on the occasion ofhis first lesson to that distinguished young gentleman; and how, althoughMr. Meeker's shins were sore, he pleaded nobly for Mr. George, who wassent home in the carriage by himself, --a punishment, by the way, whichMr. George desired above all things. 

This celebrated incident occurred in the new ballroom at the top of thenew house of young Mrs. Hayden, where the meetings of the dancing classwere held weekly. Today the soot, like the ashes of Vesuvius, spoutingfrom ten thousand soft-coal craters, has buried that house and the wholedistrict fathoms deep in social obscurity. And beautiful Mrs. Hayden whathas become of her? And Lucy Hayden, that doll-like darling of the gods?

All this belongs, however, to another history, which may some day bewritten. This one is Honora's, and must be got on with, for it is to be achronicle of lightning changes. Happy we if we can follow Honora, and wemust be prepared to make many friends and drop them in the process. 

Shortly after Mrs. Hayden had built that palatial house (which had a highfence around its grounds and a driveway leading to a porte-cochere) andhad given her initial ball, the dancing class began. It was on a blueafternoon in late November that Aunt Mary and Honora, with Cousin Eleanorand the two girls, and George sulking in a corner of the carriage, weredriven through the gates behind Bias and the fat horses of the Hanburys. 

Honora has a vivid remembrance of the impression the house made on her, with its polished floors and spacious rooms filled with a new andmysterious and altogether inspiring fashion of things. Mrs. Haydenrepresented the outposts in the days of Richardson and Davenport--hadHonora but known it. This great house was all so different from anythingshe (and many others in the city) had ever seen. And she stood gazinginto the drawing room, with its curtains and decorously drawn shades, ina rapture which her aunt and cousins were far from guessing. 

"Come, Honora, " said her aunt. "What's the matter, dear?"

How could she explain to Aunt Mary that the sight of beautiful thingsgave her a sort of pain--when she did not yet know it herself? There wasthe massive stairway, for instance, which they ascended, softly lightedby a great leaded window of stained glass on the first landing; and thespacious bedrooms with their shining brass beds and lace spreads (anotherinnovation which Honora resolved to adopt when she married); and at last, far above all, its deep-set windows looking out above the trees towardsthe park a mile to the westward, the ballroom, --the ballroom, with itsmirrors and high chandeliers, and chairs of gilt and blue set against thewalls, all of which made no impression whatever upon George and Mary andEdith, but gave Honora a thrill. No wonder that she learned to dancequickly under such an inspiration!

And how pretty Mrs. Hayden looked as she came forward to greet them andkissed Honora! She had been Virginia Grey, and scarce had had a gown toher back when she had married the elderly Duncan Hayden, who had builther this house and presented her with a checkbook, --a check-book whichVirginia believed to be like the widow's cruse of oil-unfailing. Alas, those days of picnics and balls; of dinners at that recent innovation, the club; of theatre-parties and excursions to baseball games between theyoung men in Mrs. Hayden's train (and all young men were) who played atHarvard or Yale or Princeton; those days were too care-free to haveendured. 

"Aunt Mary, " asked Honora, when they were home again in the lamplight ofthe little sitting-room, "why was it that Mr. Meeker was so polite toCousin Eleanor, and asked her about my dancing instead of you?"

Aunt Mary smiled. 

"Because, Honora, " she said, "because I am a person of no importance inMr. Meeker's eyes. "

"If I were a man, " cried Honora, fiercely, "I should never rest until Ihad made enough money to make Mr. Meeker wriggle. "

"Honora, come here, " said her aunt, gazing in troubled surprise at thetense little figure by the mantel. "I don't know what could have put suchthings into your head, my child. Money isn't everything. In times of realtrouble it cannot save one. "

"But it can save one from humiliation!" exclaimed Honora, unexpectedly. Another sign of a peculiar precociousness, at fourteen, with which AuntMary was finding herself unable to cope. "I would rather be killed thanhumiliated by Mr. Meeker. "

Whereupon she flew out of the room and upstairs, where old Catherine, indismay, found her sobbing a little later. 

Poor Aunt Mary! Few people guessed the spirit which was bound up in her, aching to extend its sympathy and not knowing how, save by an unswervingand undemonstrative devotion. Her words of comfort were as few as hersilent deeds were many. 

But Honora continued to go to the dancing class, where she treated Mr. Meeker with a hauteur that astonished him, amused Virginia Hayden, andperplexed Cousin Eleanor. Mr. Meeker's cringing soul responded, and in amonth Honora was the leading spirit of the class, led the marches, andwas pointed out by the little dancing master as all that a lady should bein deportment and bearing. 

This treatment, which succeeded so well in Mr. Meeker's case, Honora hadpreviously applied to others of his sex. Like most people with a future, she began young. Of late, for instance, Mr. George Hanbury had shown atendency to regard her as his personal property; for George had ahigh-handed way with him, --boys being an enigma to his mother. Even inthose days he had a bullet head and a red face and square shoulders, andwas rather undersized for his age--which was Honora's. 

Needless to say, George did not approve of the dancing class; and let itbe known, both by words and deeds, that he was there under protest. Nordid he regard with favour Honora's triumphal progress, but sat in acorner with several congenial spirits whose feelings ranged from scorn todespair, commenting in loud whispers upon those of his sex to whom theterpsichorean art came more naturally. Upon one Algernon Cartwright, forexample, whose striking likeness to the Van Dyck portrait of a young kinghad been more than once commented upon by his elders, and whose velveteensuits enhanced the resemblance. Algernon, by the way, was the favouritemale pupil of Mr. Meeker; and, on occasions, Algernon and Honora werecalled upon to give exhibitions for the others, the sight of which filledGeorge with contemptuous rage. Algernon danced altogether too much withHonora, --so George informed his cousin. 

The simple result of George's protests was to make Honora dance withAlgernon the more, evincing, even at this period of her career, acommendable determination to resent dictation. George should have livedin the Middle Ages, when the spirit of modern American womanhood was asyet unborn. Once he contrived, by main force, to drag her out into thehall. 

"George, " she said, "perhaps, if you'd let me alone perhaps I'd like youbetter. "

"Perhaps, " he retorted fiercely, "if you wouldn't make a fool of yourselfwith those mother's darlings, I'd like you better. "

"George, " said Honora, "learn to dance. "

"Never!" he cried, but she was gone. While hovering around the door heheard Mrs. Hayden's voice. 

"Unless I am tremendously mistaken, my dear, " that lady was remarking toMrs. Dwyer, whose daughter Emily's future millions were powerless tocompel youths of fourteen to dance with her, although she is now happilymarried, "unless I am mistaken, Honora will have a career. The child willbe a raving beauty. And she has to perfection the art of managing men. "

"As her father had the art of managing women, " said Mrs. Dwyer. "Dear me, how well I remember Randolph! I would have followed him to--to Cheyenne. "

Mrs. Hayden laughed. "He never would have gone to Cheyenne, I imagine, "she said. 

"He never looked at me, and I have reason to be profoundly thankful forit, " said Mrs. Dwyer. 

Virginia Hayden bit her lip. She remembered a saying of Mrs. Brice, "Blessed are the ugly, for they shall not be tempted. "

"They say that poor Tom Leffingwell has not yet finished paying hisdebts, " continued Mrs. Dwyer, "although his uncle, Eleanor Hanbury'sfather, cancelled what Randolph had had from him in his will. It wastwenty-five thousand dollars. James Hanbury, you remember, had himappointed consul at Nice. Randolph Leffingwell gave the impression ofconferring a favour when he borrowed money. I cannot understand why hemarried that penniless and empty-headed beauty. "

"Perhaps, " said Mrs. Hayden, "it was because of his ability to borrowmoney that he felt he could afford to. "

The eyes of the two ladies unconsciously followed Honora about the room. 

"I never knew a better or a more honest woman than Mary Leffingwell, butI tremble for her. She is utterly incapable of managing that child. IfHonora is a complicated mechanism now, what will she be at twenty? Shehas elements in her which poor Mary never dreamed of. I overheard herwith Emily, and she talks like a grown-up person. "

Mrs. Hayden's dimples deepened. 

"Better than some grown-up women, " she said. "She sat in my room while Idressed the other afternoon. Mrs. Leffingwell had sent her with a noteabout that French governess. And, by the way, she speaks French as thoughshe had lived in Paris. "

Little Mrs. Dwyer raised her hands in protest. 

"It doesn't seem natural, somehow. It doesn't seem exactly--moral, mydear. "

"Nonsense, " said Mrs. Hayden. "Mrs. Leffingwell is only giving the childthe advantages which her companions have--Emily has French, hasn't she?"

"But Emily can't speak it--that way, " said Mrs. Dwyer. "I don't blameMary Leffingwell. She thinks she is doing her duty, but it has alwaysseemed to me that Honora was one of those children who would better havebeen brought up on bread and butter and jam. "

"Honora would only have eaten the jam, " said Mrs. Hayden. "But I loveher. "

"I, too, am fond of the child, but I tremble for her. I am afraid she hasthat terrible thing which is called temperament. "

George Hanbury made a second heroic rush, and dragged Honora out oncemore. 

"What is this disease you've got?" he demanded. 

"Disease?" she cried; "I haven't any disease. "

"Mrs Dwyer says you have temperament, and that it is a terrible thing. "

Honora stopped him in a corner. 

"Because people like Mrs. Dwyer haven't got it, " she declared, with awarmth which George found inexplicable. 

"What is it?" he demanded. 

"You'll never know, either, George, " she answered; "it's soul. "

"Soul!" he repeated; "I have one, and its immortal, " he added promptly. 

In the summer, that season of desolation for Honora, when George Hanburyand Algernon Cartwright and other young gentlemen were at the seashorelearning to sail boats and to play tennis, Peter Erwin came to his own. Nearly every evening after dinner, while the light was still lingeringunder the shade trees of the street, and Aunt Mary still placidly sewingin the wicker chair on the lawn, and Uncle Tom making the tour of flowerswith his watering pot, the gate would slam, and Peter's tall form appear. 

It never occurred to Honora that had it not been for Peter those eveningswould have been even less bearable than they were. To sit indoors with alight and read in a St. Louis midsummer was not to be thought of. Peterplayed backgammon with her on the front steps, and later on--chess. Sometimes they went for a walk as far as Grand Avenue. And sometimes whenHonora grew older--she was permitted to go with him to Uhrig's Cave. Those were memorable occasions indeed!

What Saint Louisan of the last generation does not remember Uhrig's Cave?nor look without regret upon the thing which has replaced it, called aColiseum? The very name, Uhrig's Cave, sent a shiver of delight downone's spine, and many were the conjectures one made as to what might beenclosed in that half a block of impassible brick wall, over which thegreat trees stretched their branches. Honora, from comparative infancy, had her own theory, which so possessed the mind of Edith Hanbury that shewould not look at the wall when they passed in the carriage. It was astill and sombre place by day; and sometimes, if you listened, you couldhear the whisperings of the forty thieves on the other side of the wall. But no one had ever dared to cry "Open, Sesame!" at the great woodengates. 

At night, in the warm season, when well brought up children were at homeor at the seashore, strange things were said to happen at Uhrig's Cave. 

Honora was a tall slip of a girl of sixteen before it was given her toknow these mysteries, and the Ali Baba theory a thing of the past. Othertheories had replaced it. Nevertheless she clung tightly to Peter's armas they walked down Locust Street and came in sight of the wall. Aboveit, and under the big trees, shone a thousand glittering lights: therewas a crowd at the gate, and instead of saying, "Open, Sesame, " Peterslipped two bright fifty-cent pieces to the red-faced German ticketman, and in they went. 

First and most astounding of disillusions of passing childhood, it wasnot a cave at all! And yet the word "disillusion" does not apply. It was, after all, the most enchanting and exciting of spots, to make one's eyeshine and one's heart beat. Under the trees were hundreds of tablessurrounded by hovering ministering angels in white, and if you wereGerman, they brought you beer; if American, ice-cream. Beyond the tableswas a stage, with footlights already set and orchestra tuning up, and acurtain on which was represented a gentleman making decorous love to alady beside a fountain. As in a dream, Honora followed Peter to a table, and he handed her a programme. 

"Oh, Peter, " she cried, "it's going to be 'Pinafore'!"

Honora's eyes shone like stars, and elderly people at the neighbouringtables turned more than once to smile at her that evening. And Peterturned more than once and smiled too. But Honora did not consider Peter. He was merely Providence in one of many disguises, and Providence isaccepted by his beneficiaries as a matter of fact. 

The rapture of a young lady of temperament is a difficult thing topicture. The bird may feel it as he soars, on a bright August morning, high above amber cliffs jutting out into indigo seas; the novelist mayfeel it when the four walls of his room magically disappear and theprofound secrets of the universe are on the point of revealingthemselves. Honora gazed, and listened, and lost herself. She was nolonger in Uhrig's Cave, but in the great world, her soul a-quiver withharmonies. 

"Pinafore, " although a comic opera, held something tragic for Honora, andopened the flood-gates to dizzy sensations which she did not understand. How little Peter, who drummed on the table to the tune of:

 "Give three cheers and one cheer more For the hearty captain of the Pinafore, "

imagined what was going on beside him! There were two factors in hispleasure; he liked the music, and he enjoyed the delight of Honora. 

What is Peter? Let us cease looking at him through Honora's eyes andtaking him like daily bread, to be eaten and not thought about. From onepoint of view, he is twenty-nine and elderly, with a sense of humourunsuspected by young persons of temperament. Strive as we will, we haveonly been able to see him in his role of Providence, or of the piper. Hashe no existence, no purpose in life outside of that perpetual gentlemanin waiting? If so, Honora has never considered it. 

After the finale had been sung and the curtain dropped for the last time, Honora sighed and walked out of the garden as one in a trance. Once in awhile, as he found a way for them through the crowd, Peter glanced downat her, and something like a smile tugged at the corners of a decidedlymasculine mouth, and lit up his eyes. Suddenly, at Locust Street, underthe lamp, she stopped and surveyed him. She saw a very real, very humanindividual, clad in a dark nondescript suit of clothes which had beenbought ready-made, and plainly without the bestowal of much thought, onFifth Street. The fact that they were a comparative fit was in itself atribute to the enterprise of the Excelsior Clothing Company, for Honora'sobservation that he was too long one way had been just. He was too tall, his shoulders were too high, his nose too prominent, his eyes toodeep-set; and he wore a straw hat with the brim turned up. 

To Honora his appearance was as familiar as the picture of the Pope whichhad always stood on Catherine's bureau. But to-night, by grace of someadded power of vision, she saw him with new and critical eyes. She wassurprised to discover that he was possessed of a quality with which shehad never associated him--youth. Not to put it too strongly--comparativeyouth. 

"Peter, " she demanded, "why do you dress like that?"

"Like what?" he said. 

Honora seized the lapel of his coat. 

"Like that, " she repeated. "Do you know, if you wore different clothes, you might almost be distinguished looking. Don't laugh. I think it'shorrid of you always to laugh when I tell you things for your own good. "

"It was the idea of being almost distinguished looking that--that gave mea shock, " he assured her repentantly. 

"You should dress on a different principle, " she insisted. 

Peter appeared dazed. 

"I couldn't do that, " he said. 

"Why not?"

"Because--because I don't dress on any principle now. "

"Yes, you do, " said Honora, firmly. "You dress on the principle of thewild beasts and fishes. It's all in our natural history at Miss Farmer's. The crab is the colour of the seaweed, and the deer of the thicket. It'sa device of nature for the protection of weak things. "

Peter drew himself up proudly. 

"I have always understood, Miss Leffingwell, that the king of beasts wassomewhere near the shade of the jungle. "

Honora laughed in spite of this apparent refutation of her theory of hisapparel, and shook her head. 

"Do be serious, Peter. You'd make much more of an impression on people ifyou wore clothes that had--well, a little more distinction. "

"What's the use of making an impression if you can't follow it up?" hesaid. 

"You can, " she declared. "I never thought of it until to-night, but youmust have a great deal in you to have risen all the way from an errandboy in the bank to a lawyer. "

"Look out!" he cautioned her; "I shall become insupportably conceited. "

"A little more conceit wouldn't hurt you, " said Honora, critically. "You'll forgive me, Peter, if I tell you from time to time what I think. It's for your own good. "

"I try to realize that, " replied Peter, humbly. "How do you wish me todress--like Mr. Rossiter?"

The picture evoked of Peter arrayed like Mr. Harland Rossiter, who hadsent flowers to two generations and was preparing to send more to athird, was irresistible. Every city, hamlet, and village has its HarlandRossiter. He need not be explained. But Honora soon became grave again. 

"No, but you ought to dress as though you were somebody, and differentfrom the ordinary man on the street. "

"But I'm not, " objected Peter. 

"Oh, " cried Honora, "don't you want to be? I can't understand any man notwanting to be. If I were a man, I wouldn't stay here a day longer than Ihad to. "

Peter was silent as they went in at the gate and opened the door, for onthis festive occasion they were provided with a latchkey. He turned upthe light in the hall to behold a transformation quite as wonderful asany contained in the "Arabian Nights" or Keightley's "Fairy Mythology. "This was not the Honora with whom he had left the house scarce threehours before! The cambric dress, to be sure, was still no longer than thetops of her ankles and the hair still hung in a heavy braid down herback. These were positively all that remained of the original Honora, andthe change had occurred in the incredibly brief space required for theproduction of the opera "Pinafore. " This Honora was a woman in a strangeand disturbing state of exaltation, whose eyes beheld a vision. AndPeter, although he had been the subject of her conversation, well knewthat he was not included in the vision. He smiled a little as he lookedat her. It is becoming apparent that he is one of those unfortunateunimaginative beings incapable of great illusions. 

"You're not going!" she exclaimed. 

He glanced significantly at the hall clock. 

"Why, it's long after bedtime, Honora. "

"I don't want to go to bed. I feel like talking, " she declared. "Come, let's sit on the steps awhile. If you go home, I shan't go to sleep forhours, Peter. "

"And what would Aunt Mary say to me?" he inquired. 

"Oh, she wouldn't care. She wouldn't even know it. "

He shook his head, still smiling. 

"I'd never be allowed to take you to Uhrig's Cave, or anywhere else, again, " he replied. "I'll come to-morrow evening, and you can talk to methen. "

"I shan't feel like it then, " she said in a tone that implied hisopportunity was now or never. But seeing him still obdurate, withstartling suddenness she flung her arms mound his neck--a method which attimes had succeeded marvellously--and pleaded coaxingly: "Only a quarterof an hour, Peter. I've got so many things to say, and I know I shallforget them by to-morrow. "

It was a night of wonders. To her astonishment the hitherto pliant Peter, who only existed in order to do her will, became transformed into abrusque masculine creature which she did not recognize. With a movementthat was almost rough he released himself and fled, calling back a "goodnight" to her out of the darkness. He did not even wait to assist her inthe process of locking up. Honora, profoundly puzzled, stood for a whilein the doorway gazing out into the night. When at length she turned, shehad forgotten him entirely. 

It was true that she did not sleep for hours, and on awaking the nextmorning another phenomenon awaited her. The "little house under the hill"was immeasurably shrunken. Poor Aunt Mary, who did not understand that aperformance of "Pinafore" could give birth to the unfulfilled longingswhich result in the creation of high things, spoke to Uncle Tom a weeklater concerning an astonishing and apparently abnormal access ofindustry. 

"She's been reading all day long, Tom, or else shut up in her room, whereCatherine tells me she is writing. I'm afraid Eleanor Hanbury is rightwhen she says I don't understand the child. And yet she is the same to meas though she were my own. "

It was true that Honora was writing, and that the door was shut, and thatshe did not feel the heat. In one of the bookcases she had chanced uponthat immortal biography of Dr. Johnson, and upon the letters of anotherprodigy of her own sex, Madame d'Arblay, whose romantic debut as anauthoress was inspiration in itself. Honora actually quivered when sheread of Dr. Johnson's first conversation with Miss Burney. To write abook of the existence of which even one's own family did not know, topublish it under a nom de plume, and to awake one day to fetes and famewould be indeed to live!

Unfortunately Honora's novel no longer exists, or the world might havediscovered a second Evelina. A regard for truth compels the statementthat it was never finished. But what rapture while the fever lasted!Merely to take up the pen was to pass magically through marble portalsinto the great world itself. 

The Sir Charles Grandison of this novel was, needless to say, not PeterErwin. He was none other than Mr. Randolph Leffingwell, under a very thindisguise. 

CHAPTER V

IN WHICH PROVIDENCE BEEPS FAITH

Two more years have gone by, limping in the summer and flying in thewinter, two more years of conquests. For our heroine appears to be one ofthe daughters of Helen, born to make trouble for warriors and others--and even for innocent bystanders like Peter Erwin. Peter was debarredfrom entering those brilliant lists in which apparel played so great apart. George Hanbury, Guy Rossiter, Algernon Cartwright, Eliphalet HopperDwyer--familiarly known as "Hoppy"--and other young gentlemen whose namesare now but memories, each had his brief day of triumph. Arrayed likeSolomon in wonderful clothes from the mysterious and luxurious East, theyreturned at Christmas-tide and Easter from college to break lances overHonora. Let us say it boldly--she was like that: she had the world-oldknack of sowing discord and despair in the souls of young men. Shewas--as those who had known that fascinating gentleman were not slow toremark--Randolph Leffingwell over again. 

During the festival seasons, Uncle Tom averred, they wore out the latchon the front gate. If their families possessed horses to spare, they tookHonora driving in Forest Park; they escorted her to those anomalousdances peculiar to their innocent age, which are neither children'sparties nor full-fledged balls; their presents, while of no intrinsicvalue--as one young gentleman said in a presentation speech--had anenormous, if shy, significance. 

"What a beautiful ring you are wearing, Honora, " Uncle Tom remarked slylyone April morning at breakfast; "let me see it. "

Honora blushed, and hid her hand under the table-cloth. 

And the ring-suffice it to say that her little finger was exactlyinsertable in a ten-cent piece from which everything had been removed butthe milling: removed with infinite loving patience by Mr. Rossiter, andat the expense of much history and philosophy and other less importantthings, in his college bedroom at New Haven. Honora wore it for a wholeweek; a triumph indeed for Mr. Rossiter; when it was placed in a box inHonora's bedroom, which contained other gifts--not all from him--and manyletters, in the writing of which learning had likewise suffered. Theimmediate cause of the putting away of this ring was said to be therenowned Clinton Howe, who was on the Harvard football eleven, and whovisited Mr. George Hanbury that Easter. Fortunate indeed the tailor whowas called upon to practise his art on an Adonis like Mr. Howe, and itwas remarked that he scarcely left Honora's side at the garden party anddance which Mrs. Dwyer gave in honour of the returning heroes, on theMonday of Easter week. 

This festival, on which we should like to linger, but cannot, took placeat the new Dwyer residence. For six months the Victorian mansion oppositeUncle Tom's house had been sightless, with blue blinds drawn down insidethe plate glass windows. And the yellow stone itself was not so yellow asit once had been, but had now the appearance of soiled manilla wrappingpaper, with black streaks here and there where the soot had run. The newDwyer house was of grey stone, Georgian and palatial, with apicture-gallery twice the size of the old one; a magnificent and fittingpioneer in a new city of palaces. 

Westward the star of Empire--away from the smoke. The Dwyer mansion, withits lawns and gardens and heavily balustraded terrace, faced the parkthat stretched away like a private estate to the south and west. Thatsame park with its huge trees and black forests that was Ultima Thule inHonora's childhood; in the open places there had been real farms andhayricks which she used to slide down with Peter while Uncle Tom lookedfor wild flowers in the fields. It had been separated from the city inthose days by an endless country road, like a Via Claudia stretchingtowards mysterious Germanian forests, and it was deemed a feat for Peterto ride thither on his big-wheeled bicycle. Forest Park was the country, and all that the country represented in Honora's childhood. For Uncle Tomon a summer's day to hire a surrey at Braintree's Livery Stable and drivethither was like--to what shall that bliss be compared in these days whenwe go to Europe with indifference?

And now Lindell Road--the Via Claudia of long, ago--had become LindellBoulevard, with granitoid sidewalks. And the dreary fields through whichit had formerly run were bristling with new houses in no sense Victorian, and which were the first stirrings of a national sense of the artistic. The old horse-cars with the clanging chains had disappeared, and youcould take an electric to within a block of the imposing grille thatsurrounded the Dwyer grounds. Westward the star!

Fading fast was the glory of that bright new district on top of thesecond hill from the river where Uncle Tom was a pioneer. Soot had killedthe pear trees, the apricots behind the lattice fence had withered away;asphalt and soot were slowly sapping the vitality of the maples on thesidewalk; and sometimes Uncle Tom's roses looked as though they mightadvantageously be given a coat of paint, like those in Alice inWonderland. Honora should have lived in the Dwyers' mansion-people whoare capable of judging said so. People who saw her at the garden partysaid she had the air of belonging in such surroundings much more thanEmily, whom even budding womanhood had not made beautiful. And EliphaletHopper Dwyer, if his actions meant anything, would have welcomed her tothat house, or built her another twice as fine, had she deigned to givehim the least encouragement. 

Cinderella! This was what she facetiously called herself one July morningof that summer she was eighteen. 

Cinderella in more senses than one, for never had the city seemed moredirty or more deserted, or indeed, more stifling. Winter and itsfestivities were a dream laid away in moth balls. Surely Cinderella'slife had held no greater contrasts! To this day the odour of mattingbrings back to Honora the sense of closed shutters; of a stifling southwind stirring their slats at noonday; the vision of Aunt Mary, cool andplacid in a cambric sacque, sewing by the window in the upper hall, andthe sound of fruit venders crying in the street, or of ragmen in thealley--"Rags, bottles, old iron!" What memories of endless, burning, lonely days come rushing back with those words!

When the sun had sufficiently heated the bricks of the surrounding housesin order that he might not be forgotten during the night, he slowlydeparted. If Honora took her book under the maple tree in the yard, shewas confronted with that hideous wooden sign "To Let" on the Dwyer's ironfence opposite, and the grass behind it was unkempt and overgrown withweeds. Aunt Mary took an unceasing and (to Honora's mind) morbid interestin the future of that house. 

"I suppose it will be a boarding-house, " she would say, "it's much toolarge for poor people to rent, and only poor people are coming into thisdistrict now. "

"Oh, Aunt Mary!"

"Well, my dear, why should we complain? We are poor, and it isappropriate that we should live among the poor. Sometimes I think it is apity that you should have been thrown all your life with rich people, mychild. I am afraid it has made you discontented. It is no disgrace to bepoor. We ought to be thankful that we have everything we need. "

Honora put down her sewing. For she had learned to sew--Aunt Mary hadinsisted upon that, as well as French. She laid her hand upon her aunt's. 

"I am thankful, " she said, and her aunt little guessed the intensity ofthe emotion she was seeking to control, or imagined the hidden fires. "But sometimes--sometimes I try to forget that we are poor. Perhaps--some day we shall not be. "

It seemed to Honora that Aunt Mary derived a real pleasure from thecontradiction of this hope. She shook her head vigorously. 

"We shall always be, my child. Your Uncle Tom is getting old, and he hasalways been too honest to make a great deal of money. And besides, " sheadded, "he has not that kind of ability. "

Uncle Tom might be getting old, but he seemed to Honora to be of the sameage as in her childhood. Some people never grow old, and Uncle Tom wasone of these. Fifteen years before he had been promoted to be the cashierof the Prairie Bank, and he was the cashier to-day. He had the same quietsmile, the same quiet humour, the same calm acceptance of life. He seemedto bear no grudge even against that ever advancing enemy, the soot, whichmade it increasingly difficult for him to raise his flowers. Those whichwould still grow he washed tenderly night and morning with hiswatering-pot. The greatest wonders are not at the ends of the earth, butnear us. It was to take many years for our heroine to realize this. 

Strong faith alone could have withstood the continued contact with such adetermined fatalism as Aunt Mary's, and yet it is interesting to notethat Honora's belief in her providence never wavered. A prince was tocome who was to bear her away from the ragmen and the boarding-houses andthe soot: and incidentally and in spite of herself, Aunt Mary was to cometoo, and Uncle Tom. And sometimes when she sat reading of an eveningunder the maple, her book would fall to her lap and the advent of thispersonage become so real a thing that she bounded when the gate slammed--to find that it was only Peter. 

It was preposterous, of course, that Peter should be a prince indisguise. Peter who, despite her efforts to teach him distinction indress, insisted upon wearing the same kind of clothes. A mild kind ofprovidence, Peter, whose modest functions were not unlike those of thethird horse which used to be hitched on to the street car at the foot ofthe Seventeenth-Street hill: it was Peter's task to help pull Honorathrough the interminable summers. Uhrig's Cave was an old story now:mysteries were no longer to be expected in St. Louis. There was a greatpanorama--or something to that effect--in the wilderness at the end ofone of the new electric lines, where they sometimes went to behold theWhite Squadron of the new United States Navy engaged in battle with mimicforts on a mimic sea, on the very site where the country place of MadameClement had been. The mimic sea, surrounded by wooden stands filled withcommon people eating peanuts and popcorn, was none other than MadameClement's pond, which Honora remembered as a spot of enchantment. Andthey went out in the open cars with these same people, who stared atHonora as though she had got in by mistake, but always politely gave hera seat. And Peter thanked them. Sometimes he fell into conversations withthem, and it was noticeable that they nearly always shook hands with himat parting. Honora did not approve of this familiarity. 

"But they may be clients some day, " he argued--a frivolous answer towhich she never deigned to reply. 

Just as one used to take for granted that third horse which pulled thecar uphill, so Peter was taken for granted. He might have been on thehighroad to a renown like that of Chief Justice Marshall, and Honora hadbeen none the wiser. 

"Well, Peter, " said Uncle Tom at dinner one evening of that memorablesummer, when Aunt Mary was helping the blackberries, and incidentallydeploring that she did not live in the country, because of the cream onegot there, "I saw Judge Brice in the bank to-day, and he tells me youcovered yourself with glory in that iron foundry suit. "

"The Judge must have his little joke, Mr. Leffingwell, " replied Peter, but he reddened nevertheless. 

Honora thought winning an iron foundry suit a strange way to cover one'sself with glory. It was not, at any rate, her idea of glory. What werelawyers for, if not to win suits? And Peter was a lawyer. 

"In five years, " said Uncle Tom, "the firm will be 'Brice and Erwin'. Youmark my words. And by that time, " he added, with a twinkle in his eye, "you'll be ready to marry Honora. "

"Tom, " reproved Aunt Mary, gently, "you oughtn't to say such things. "

This time there was no doubt about Peter's blush. He fairly burned. Honora looked at him and laughed. 

"Peter is meant for an old bachelor, " she said. 

"If he remains a bachelor, " said Uncle Tom, "he'll be the greatest wasteof good material I know of. And if you succeed in getting him, Honora, you'll be the luckiest young woman of my acquaintance. "

"Tom, " said Aunt Mary, "it was all very well to talk that way when Honorawas a child. But now--she may not wish to marry Peter. And Peter may notwish to marry her. "

Even Peter joined in the laughter at this literal and characteristicstatement of the case. 

"It's more than likely, " said Honora, wickedly. "He hasn't kissed me fortwo years. "

"Why, Peter, " said Uncle Tom, "you act as though it were warm to-night. It was only seventy when we came in to dinner. "

"Take me out to the park, " commanded Honora. 

"Tom, " said Aunt Mary, as she stood on the step and watched them crossthe street, "I wish the child would marry him. Not now, of course, " sheadded hastily, --a little frightened by her own admission, "but later. Sometimes I worry over her future. She needs a strong and sensible man. Idon't understand Honora. I never did. I always told you so. Sometimes Ithink she may be capable of doing something foolish like--likeRandolph. "

Uncle Tom patted his wife on the shoulder. 

"Don't borrow trouble, Mary, " he said, smiling a little. "The child isonly full of spirits. But she has a good heart. It is only human that sheshould want things that we cannot give her. "

"I wish, " said Aunt Mary, "that she were not quite so good-looking. "

Uncle Tom laughed. "You needn't tell me you're not proud of it, " hedeclared. 

"And I have given her, " she continued, "a taste for dress. "

"I think, my dear, " said her husband, "that there were others whocontributed to that. "

"It was my own vanity. I should have combated the tendency in her, " saidAunt Mary. 

"If you had dressed Honora in calico, you could not have changed her, "replied Uncle Tom, with conviction. 

In the meantime Honora and Peter had mounted the electric car, and werespeeding westward. They had a seat to themselves, the very first one onthe "grip"--that survival of the days of cable cars. Honora's eyesbrightened as she held on to her hat, and the stray wisps of hair abouther neck stirred in the breeze. 

"Oh, I wish we would never stop, until we came to the Pacific Ocean!" sheexclaimed. 

"Would you be content to stop then?" he asked. He had a trick of lookingdownward with a quizzical expression in his dark grey eyes. 

"No, " said Honora. "I should want to go on and see everything in theworld worth seeing. Sometimes I feel positively as though I should die ifI had to stay here in St. Louis. "

"You probably would die--eventually, " said Peter. 

Honora was justifiably irritated. 

"I could shake you, Peter!"

He laughed. 

"I'm afraid it wouldn't do any good, " he answered. 

"If I were a man, " she proclaimed, "I shouldn't stay here. I'd go to NewYork--I'd be somebody--I'd make a national reputation for myself. "

"I believe you would, " said Peter sadly, but with a glance of admiration. 

"That's the worst of being a woman--we have to sit still until somethinghappens to us. "

"What would you like to happen?" he asked, curiously. And there was anote in his voice which she, intent upon her thoughts, did not remark. 

"Oh, I don't know, " she said; "anything--anything to get out of this rutand be something in the world. It's dreadful to feel that one has powerand not be able to use it. "

The car stopped at the terminal. Thanks to the early hour of Aunt Mary'sdinner, the western sky was still aglow with the sunset over the forestsas they walked past the closed grille of the Dwyer mansion into the park. Children rolled on the grass, while mothers and fathers, tired out fromthe heat and labour of a city day, sat on the benches. Peter stooped downand lifted a small boy, painfully thin, who had fallen, weeping, on thegravel walk. He took his handkerchief and wiped the scratch on thechild's forehead. 

"There, there!" he said, smiling, "it's all right now. We must expect afew tumbles. "

The child looked at him, and suddenly smiled through his tears. 

The father appeared, a red-headed Irishman. 

"Thank you, Mr. Erwin; I'm sure it's very kind of you, sir, to botherwith him, " he said gratefully. "It's that thin he is with the heat, Itake him out for a bit of country air. "

"Why, Tim, it's you, is it?" said Peter. "He's the janitor of ourbuilding down town, " he explained to Honora, who had remained a silentwitness to this simple scene. She had been, in spite of herself, impressed by it, and by the mingled respect and affection in thejanitor's manner towards Peter. It was so with every one to whom hespoke. They walked on in silence for a few moments, into a path leadingto a lake, which had stolen the flaming green-gold of the sky. 

"I suppose, " said Honora, slowly, "it would be better for me to wish tobe contented where I am, as you are. But it's no use trying, I can't. "

Peter was not a preacher. 

"Oh, " he said, "there are lots of things I want. "

"What?" demanded Honora, interested. For she had never conceived of himas having any desires whatever. 

"I want a house like Mr. Dwyer's, " he declared, pointing at the distantimposing roof line against the fading eastern sky. 

Honora laughed. The idea of Peter wishing such a house was indeedridiculous. Then she became grave again. 

"There are times when you seem to forget that I have at last grown up, Peter. You never will talk over serious things with me. "

"What are serious things?" asked Peter. 

"Well, " said Honora vaguely, "ambitions, and what one is going to make ofthemselves in life. And then you make fun of me by saying you want Mr. Dwyer's house. " She laughed again. "I can't imagine you in that house!"

"Why not?" he asked, stopping beside the pond and thrusting his hands inhis pockets. He looked very solemn, but she knew he was smiling inwardly. 

"Why--because I can't, " she said, and hesitated. The question had forcedher to think about Peter. "I can't imagine you living all alone in allthat luxury. It isn't like you. "

"Why I all alone?" asked Peter. 

"Don't--Don't be ridiculous, " she said; "you wouldn't build a house likethat, even if you were twice as rich as Mr. Dwyer. You know you wouldn't. And you're not the marrying kind, " she added, with the superior knowledgeof eighteen. 

"I'm waiting for you, Honora, " he announced. 

"You know I love you, Peter, "--so she tempered her reply, for Honora'sfeelings were tender. What man, even Peter, would not have married her ifhe could? Of course he was in earnest, despite his bantering tone, "but Inever could--marry you. "

"Not even if I were to offer you a house like Mr. Dwyer's?" he said. Aremark which betrayed--although not to her--his knowledge of certainearthly strains in his goddess. 

The colours faded from the water, and it blackened. 

As they walked on side by side in the twilight, a consciousness ofrepressed masculine force, of reserve power, which she had never beforefelt about Peter Erwin, invaded her; and she was seized with a strangeuneasiness. Ridiculous was the thought (which she lost no time inrejecting) that pointed out the true road to happiness in marrying such aman as he. In the gathering darkness she slipped her hand through hisarm. 

"I wish I could marry you, Peter, " she said. 

He was fain to take what comfort he could from this expression ofgood-will. If he was not the Prince Charming of her dreams, she wouldhave liked him to be. A little reflection on his part ought to have shownhim the absurdity of the Prince Charming having been there all the time, and in ready-made clothes. And he, too, may have had dreams. We are notconcerned with them. 

 . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 

If we listen to the still, small voice of realism, intense longing isalways followed by disappointment. Nothing should have happened thatsummer, and Providence should not have come disguised as the postman. Itwas a sultry day in early September-which is to say that it wascomparatively cool--a blue day, with occasional great drops of rainspattering on the brick walk. And Honora was reclining on the hall sofa, reading about Mr. Ibbetson and his duchess, when she perceived thepostman's grey uniform and smiling face on the far side of the screendoor. He greeted her cordially, and gave her a single letter for AuntMary, and she carried it unsuspectingly upstairs. 

"It's from Cousin Eleanor, " Honora volunteered. 

Aunt Mary laid down her sewing, smoothed the ruffles of her sacque, adjusted her spectacles, opened the envelope, and began to read. Presently the letter fell to her lap, and she wiped her glasses andglanced at Honora, who was deep in her book once more. And in Honora'sbrain, as she read, was ringing the refrain of the prisoner:

 "Orleans, Beaugency! Notre Dame de Clery! Vendome! Vendome! Quel chagrin, quel ennui De compter toute la nuit Les heures, les heures!". 

The verse appealed to Honora strangely; just as it had appealed toIbbetson. Was she not, too, a prisoner. And how often, during the summerdays and nights, had she listened to the chimes of the Pilgrim Churchnear by?

 "One, two, three, four! One, two, three, four!"

After Uncle Tom had watered his flowers that evening, Aunt Mary followedhim upstairs and locked the door of their room behind her. Silently sheput the letter in his hand. Here is one paragraph of it:

 "I have never asked to take the child from you in the summer, because she has always been in perfect health, and I know how lonely you would have been without her, my dear Mary. But it seems to me that a winter at Sutcliffe, with my, girls, would do her a world of good just now. I need not point out to you that Honora is, to say the least, remarkably good looking, and that she has developed very rapidly. And she has, in spite of the strict training you have given her, certain ideas and ambitions which seem to me, I am sorry to say, more or less prevalent among young American women these days. You know it is only because I love her that I am so frank. Miss Turner's influence will, in my opinion, do much to counteract these tendencies. "

Uncle Tom folded the letter, and handed it back to his wife. 

"I feel that we ought not to refuse, Tom. And I am afraid Eleanor isright. "

"Well, Mary, we've had her for seventeen years. We ought to be willing tospare her for--how many months?"

"Nine, " said Aunt Mary, promptly. She had counted them. "And Eleanor saysshe will be home for two weeks at Christmas. Seventeen years! It seemsonly yesterday when we brought her home, Tom. It was just about this timeof day, and she was asleep in your arms, and Bridget opened the door forus. " Aunt Mary looked out of the window. "And do you remember how sheused to play under the maple there, with her dolls?"

Uncle Tom produced a very large handkerchief, and blew his nose. 

"There, there, Mary, " he said, "nine months, and two weeks out atChristmas. Nine months in eighteen years. "

"I suppose we ought to be very thankful, " said Aunt Mary. "But, Tom, thetime is coming soon--"

"Tut tut, " exclaimed Uncle Tom. He turned, and his eyes beheld a work ofart. Nothing less than a porcelain plate, hung in brackets on the wall, decorated by Honora at the age of ten with wild roses, and presented withmuch ceremony on an anniversary morning. He pretended not to notice it, but Aunt Mary's eyes were too quick. She seized a photograph on herbureau, a photograph of Honora in a little white frock with a red sash. 

"It was the year that was taken, Tom. "

He nodded. The scene at the breakfast table came back to him, and thesight of Catherine standing respectfully in the hall, and of Honora, inthe red sash, making the courtesy the old woman had taught her. 

Honora recalled afterwards that Uncle Tom joked even more than usual thatevening at dinner. But it was Aunt Mary who asked her, at length, how shewould like to go to boarding-school. Such was the matter-of-fact mannerin which the portentous news was announced. 

"To boarding-school, Aunt Mary?"

Her aunt poured out her uncle's after-dinner coffee. 

"I've spilled some, my dear. Get another saucer for your uncle. "

Honora went mechanically to the china closet, her heart thumping. She didnot stop to reflect that it was the rarest of occurrences for Aunt Maryto spill the coffee. 

"Your Cousin Eleanor has invited you to go this winter with Edith andMary to Sutcliffe. "

Sutcliffe! No need to tell Honora what Sutcliffe was--her cousins hadtalked of little else during the past winter; and shown, if the truth betold, just a little commiseration for Honora. Sutcliffe was not only afamous girls' school, Sutcliffe was the world--that world which, sinceher earliest remembrances, she had been longing to see and know. In adesperate attempt to realize what had happened to her, she found herselfstaring hard at the open china closet, at Aunt Mary's best gold dinnerset resting on the pink lace paper that had been changed only last week. That dinner set, somehow, was always an augury of festival--when, on therare occasions Aunt Mary entertained, the little dining room wastransformed by it and the Leffingwell silver into a glorified andaltogether unrecognizable state, in which any miracle seemed possible. 

Honora pushed back her chair. 

Her lips were parted. 

"Oh, Aunt Mary, is it really true that I am going?" she said. 

"Why, " said Uncle Tom, "what zeal for learning!"

"My dear, " said Aunt Mary, who, you may be sure, knew all about thatschool before Cousin Eleanor's letter came, "Miss Turner insists uponhard work, and the discipline is very strict. "

"No young men, " added Uncle Tom. 

"That, " declared Aunt Mary, "is certainly an advantage. "

"And no chocolate cake, and bed at ten o'clock, " said Uncle Tom. 

Honora, dazed, only half heard them. She laughed at Uncle Tom because shealways had, but tears were shining in her eyes. Young men and chocolatecake! What were these privations compared to that magic word Change?Suddenly she rose, and flung her arms about Uncle Tom's neck and kissedhis rough cheek, and then embraced Aunt Mary. They would be lonely. 

"Aunt Mary, I can't bear to leave you--but I do so want to go! And itwon't be for long--will it? Only until next spring. "

"Until next summer, I believe, " replied Aunt Mary, gently; "June is asummer month-isn't it, Tom?"

"It will be a summer month without question next year, " answered UncleTom, enigmatically. 

It has been remarked that that day was sultry, and a fine rain was nowwashing Uncle Tom's flowers for him. It was he who had applied that term"washing" since the era of ultra-soot. Incredible as it may seem, lifeproceeded as on any other of a thousand rainy nights. The lamps werelighted in the sitting-room, Uncle Tom unfolded his gardening periodical, and Aunt Mary her embroidery. The gate slammed, with its more subdued, rainy-weather sound. 

"It's Peter, " said Honora, flying downstairs. And she caught him, astonished, as he was folding his umbrella on the step. "Oh, Peter, ifyou tried until to-morrow morning, you never could guess what hashappened. "

He stood for a moment, motionless, staring at her, a tall figure, careless of the rain. 

"You are going away, " he said. 

"How did you guess it?" she exclaimed in surprise. "Yes--toboarding-school. To Sutcliffe, on the Hudson, with Edith and Mary. Aren'tyou glad? You look as though you had seen a ghost. "

"Do I?" said Peter. 

"Don't stand there in the rain, " commanded Honora; "come into theparlour, and I'll tell you all about it. "

He came in. She took the umbrella from him, and put it in the rack. 

"Why don't you congratulate me?" she demanded. 

"You'll never come back, " said Peter. 

"What a horrid thing to say! Of course I shall come back. I shall comeback next June, and you'll be at the station to meet me. "

And--what will Uncle Tom and Aunt Mary do--without you?"

"Oh, " said Honora, "I shall miss them dreadfully. And I shall miss you, Peter. "

"Very much?" he asked, looking down at her with such a queer expression. And his voice, too, sounded queer. He was trying to smile. 

Suddenly Honora realized that he was suffering, and she felt the pangs ofcontrition. She could not remember the time when she had been away fromPeter, and it was natural that he should be stricken at the news. Peter, who was the complement of all who loved and served her, of Aunt Mary andUncle Tom and Catherine, and who somehow embodied them all. Peter, theeternally dependable. 

She found it natural that the light should be temporarily removed fromhis firmament while she should be at boarding-school, and yet in thetenderness of her heart she pitied him. She put her hands impulsivelyupon his shoulders as he stood looking at her with that queer expressionwhich he believed to be a smile. 

"Peter, you dear old thing, indeed I shall miss you! I don't know what Ishall do without you, and I'll write to you every single week. "

Gently he disengaged her arms. They were standing under that which, forcourtesy's sake, had always been called the chandelier. It was in thecentre of the parlour, and Uncle Tom always covered it with holly andmistletoe at Christmas. 

"Why do you say I'll never come back?" asked Honora. "Of course I shallcome back, and live here all the rest of my life. "

Peter shook his head slowly. He had recovered something of his customaryquizzical manner. 

"The East is a strange country, " he said. "The first thing we know you'llbe marrying one of those people we read about, with more millions thanthere are cars on the Olive Street line. "

Honora was a little indignant. 

"I wish you wouldn't talk so, Peter, " she said. "In the first place, Ishan't see any but girls at Sutcliffe. I could only see you for a fewminutes once a week if you were there. And in the second place, it isn'texactly--Well--dignified to compare the East and the West the way you do, and speak about people who are very rich and live there as though theywere different from the people we know here. Comparisons, as Shakespearesaid, are odorous. "

"Honora, " he declared, still shaking his head, "you're a fraud, but Ican't help loving you. "

For a long time that night Honora lay in bed staring into the darkness, and trying to realize what had happened. She heard the whistling and thepuffing of the trains in the cinder-covered valley to the southward, butthe quality of these sounds had changed. They were music now. 

CHAPTER VI

HONORA HAS A GLIMPSE OF THE WORLD

It is simply impossible to give any adequate notion of the industry ofthe days that followed. No sooner was Uncle Tom out of the house in themorning than Anne Rory marched into the sitting-room and took command, and turned it, into a dressmaking establishment. Anne Rory, who deservesmore than a passing mention, one of the institutions of Honora's youth, who sewed for the first families, and knew much more about them than Mr. Meeker, the dancing-master. If you enjoyed her confidence, --as Aunt Marydid, --she would tell you of her own accord who gave their servants enoughto eat, and who didn't. Anne Rory was a sort of inquisition all byherself, and would have made a valuable chief of police. The reputationsof certain elderly gentlemen of wealth might have remained to this dayintact had it not been for her; she had a heaven-sent knack ofdiscovering peccadilloes. Anne Rory knew the gentlemen by sight, and thegentlemen did not know Anne Rory. Uncle Tom she held to be somewhere inthe calendar of the saints. 

There is not time, alas, to linger over Anne Rory or the new historieswhich she whispered to Aunt Mary when Honora was out of the room. At lastthe eventful day of departure arrived. Honora's new trunk--herfirst--was packed by Aunt Mary's own hands, the dainty clothes and thedresses folded in tissue paper, while old Catherine stood sniffing by. After dinner--sign of a great occasion--a carriage came from Braintree'sLivery Stable, and Uncle Tom held the horses while the driver carried outthe trunk and strapped it on. Catherine, Mary Ann, and Bridget, allweeping, were kissed good-by, and off they went through the dusk to thestation. Not the old Union Depot, with its wooden sheds, where Honora hadgone so often to see the Hanburys off, that grimy gateway to the fairerregions of the earth. This new station, of brick and stone and glass andtiles, would hold an army corps with ease. And when they alighted at thecarriage entrance, a tall figure came forward out of the shadow. It wasPeter, and he had a package under his arm. Peter checked Honora's trunk, and Peter had got the permission--through Judge Brice--which enabled themall to pass through the grille and down the long walk beside which thetrain was standing. 

They entered that hitherto mysterious conveyance, a sleeping-car, andspoke to old Mrs. Stanley, who was going East to see her marrieddaughter, and who had gladly agreed to take charge of Honora. Afterwardsthey stood on the platform, but in spite of the valiant efforts of UncleTom and Peter, conversation was a mockery. 

"Honora, " said Aunt Mary, "don't forget that your trunk key is in thelittle pocket on the left side of your bag. "

"No, Aunt Mary. "

"And your little New Testament at the bottom. And your lunch is arrangedin three packages. And don't forget to ask Cousin Eleanor about thewalking shoes, and to give her my note. "

Cries reverberated under the great glass dome, and trains pulled out withdeafening roars. Honora had a strange feeling, as of pressure fromwithin, that caused her to take deep breaths of the smoky air. She buthalf heard what was being said to her: she wished that the train wouldgo, and at the same time she had a sudden, surprising, and fierce longingto stay. She had been able to eat scarcely a mouthful of that festaldinner which Bridget had spent the afternoon in preparing, comprisedwholly of forbidden dishes of her childhood, for which Bridget and AuntMary were justly famed. Such is the irony of life. Visions of one of AuntMary's rare lunch-parties and of a small girl peeping covetously througha crack in the dining-room door, and of the gold china set, rose beforeher. But she could not eat. 

"Bread and jam and tea at Miss Turner's, " Uncle Tom had said, and she hadtried to smile at him. 

And now they were standing on the platform, and the train might start atany moment. 

"I trust you won't get like the New Yorkers, Honora, " said Aunt Mary. "Doyou remember how stiff they were, Tom?" She was still in the habit ofreferring to that memorable trip when they had brought Honora home. "Andthey say now that they hold their heads higher than ever. "

"That, " said Uncle Tom, gravely, "is a local disease, and comes fromstaring at the tall buildings. "

"Uncle Tom!"

Peter presented the parcel under his arm. It was a box of candy, and veryheavy, on which much thought had been spent. 

"They are some of the things you like, " he said, when he had returnedfrom putting it in the berth. 

"How good of you, Peter! I shall never be able to eat all that. "

"I hope there is a doctor on the train, " said Uncle Tom. 

"Yassah, " answered the black porter, who had been listening with evidentrelish, "right good doctah--Doctah Lov'ring. "

Even Aunt Mary laughed. 

"Peter, " asked Honora, "can't you get Judge Brice to send you on to NewYork this winter on law business? Then you could come up to Sutcliffe tosee me. "

"I'm afraid of Miss Turner, " declared Peter. 

"Oh, she wouldn't mind you, " exclaimed Honora. "I could say you were anuncle. It would be almost true. And perhaps she would let you take medown to New York for a matinee. "

"And how about my ready-made clothes?" he said, looking down at her. Hehad never forgotten that. 

Honora laughed. 

"You don't seem a bit sorry that I'm going, " she replied, a littlebreathlessly. "You know I'd be glad to see you, if you were in rags. "

"All aboard!" cried the porter, grinning sympathetically. 

Honora threw her arms around Aunt Mary and clung to her. How small andfrail she was! Somehow Honora had never realized it in all her lifebefore. 

"Good-by, darling, and remember to put on your thick clothes on the cooldays, and write when you get to New York. "

Then it was Uncle Tom's turn. He gave her his usual vigorous hug andkiss. 

"It won't be long until Christmas, " he whispered, and was gone, helpingAunt Mary off the train, which had begun to move. 

Peter remained a moment. 

"Good-by, Honora. I'll write to you often and let you know how they are. And perhaps--you'll send me a letter once in a while. "

"Oh, Peter, I will, " she cried. "I can't bear to leave you--I didn'tthink it would be so hard--"

He held out his hand, but she ignored it. Before he realized what hadhappened to him she had drawn his face to hers, kissed it, and waspushing him off the train. Then she watched from the, platform the threereceding figures in the yellow smoky light until the car slipped out fromunder the roof into the blackness of the night. Some faint, premonitorydivination of what they represented of immutable love in a changing, heedless, selfish world came to her; rocks to which one might cling, successful or failing, happy or unhappy. For unconsciously she thought ofthem, all three, as one, a human trinity in which her faith had neverbeen betrayed. She felt a warm moisture on her cheeks, and realized thatshe was crying with the first real sorrow of her life. 

She was leaving them--for what? Honora did not know. There had beennothing imperative in Cousin Eleanor's letter. She need not have gone ifshe had not wished. Something within herself, she felt, was impellingher. And it is curious to relate that, in her mind, going to school hadlittle or nothing to do with her journey. She had the feeling of faringforth into the world, and she had known all along that it was destinedshe should. What was the cause of this longing to break the fetters andfly away? fetters of love, they seemed to her now--and were. And theworld which she had seen afar, filled with sunlit palaces, seemed verydark and dreary to her to-night. 

"The lady's asking for you, Miss, " said the porter. 

She made a heroic attempt to talk to Mrs. Stanley. But at the sight ofPeter's candy, when she opened it, she was blinded once more. Dear Peter!That box was eloquent with the care with which he had studied herslightest desires and caprices. Marrons glaces, and Langtrys, and certainchocolates which had received the stamp of her approval--and she couldnot so much as eat one! The porter made the berths. And there had been atime when she had asked nothing more of fate than to travel in asleeping-car! Far into the night she lay wide awake, dry-eyed, watchingthe lamp-lit streets of the little towns they passed, or staring at thecornfields and pastures in the darkness; thinking of the home she hadleft, perhaps forever, and wondering whether they were sleeping there;picturing them to-morrow at breakfast without her, and Uncle Tom leavingfor the bank, Aunt Mary going through the silent rooms alone, and dearold Catherine haunting the little chamber where she had slept forseventeen years--almost her lifetime. A hundred vivid scenes of herchildhood came back, and familiar objects oddly intruded themselves; thered and green lambrequin on the parlour mantel--a present many years agofrom Cousin Eleanor; the what-not, with its funny curly legs, and thebare spot near the lock on the door of the cake closet in the diningroom!

Youth, however, has its recuperative powers. The next day the excitementof the journey held her, the sight of new cities and a new countryside. But when she tried to eat the lunch Aunt Mary had so carefully put up, new memories assailed her, and she went with Mrs. Stanley into the diningcar. The September dusk was made lurid by belching steel-furnaces thatreddened the heavens; and later, when she went to bed, sharp air andtowering contours told her of the mountains. Mountains which hergreat-grandfather had crossed on horse back, with that very family silverin his saddle-bags which shone on Aunt Mary's table. And then--she awokewith the light shining in her face, and barely had time to dress beforethe conductor was calling out "Jersey City. "

Once more the morning, and with it new and wonderful sensations thatdispelled her sorrows; the ferry, the olive-green river rolling in themorning sun, alive with dodging, hurrying craft, each bent upon itsdestination with an energy, relentlessness, and selfishness of purposethat fascinated Honora. Each, with its shrill, protesting whistle, seemedto say: "My business is the most important. Make way for me. " And yet, through them all, towering, stately, imperturbable, a great ocean steamerglided slowly towards the bay, by very might and majesty holding her wayserene and undisturbed, on a nobler errand. Honora thrilled as she gazed, as though at last her dream were coming true, and she felt within her thepulse of the world's artery. That irksome sense of spectatorship seemedto fly, and she was part and parcel now of the great, moving things, withsure pinions with which to soar. Standing rapt upon the forward deck ofthe ferry, she saw herself, not an atom, but one whose going and comingwas a thing of consequence. It seemed but a simple step to the deck ofthat steamer when she, too, would be travelling to the other side of theworld, and the journey one of the small incidents of life. 

The ferry bumped into its slip, the windlasses sang loudly as they tookup the chains, the gates folded back, and Honora was forced with thecrowd along the bridge-like passage to the right. Suddenly she saw CousinEleanor and the girls awaiting her. 

"Honora, " said Edith, when the greetings were over and they were all fourin the carriage, which was making its way slowly across the dirty andirregularly paved open space to a narrow street that opened between twosaloons, "Honora, you don't mean to say that Anne Rory made that streetdress? Mother, I believe it's better-looking than the one I got atBremer's. "

"It's very simple, ", said Honora. 

"And she looks fairly radiant, " cried Edith, seizing her cousin's hand. "It's quite wonderful, Honora; nobody would ever guess that you were fromthe West, and that you had spent the whole summer in St. Louis. "

Cousin Eleanor smiled a little as she contemplated Honora, who sat, fascinated, gazing out of the window at novel scenes. There was a colourin her cheeks and a sparkle in her eyes. They had reached Madison Square. Madison Square, on a bright morning in late September, seen for the firsttime by an ambitious young lady who had never been out of St. Louis! Thetrimly appointed vehicles, the high-stepping horses, the glitteringshops, the well-dressed women and well-groomed men--all had an esprit decorps which she found inspiring. On such a morning, and amidst such ascene, she felt that there was no limit to the possibilities of life. 

Until this year, Cousin Eleanor had been a conservative in the matter ofhotels, when she had yielded to Edith's entreaties to go to one of the"new ones. " Hotels, indeed, that revolutionized transient existence. Thisone, on the Avenue, had a giant in a long blue livery coat who openedtheir carriage door, and a hall in yellow and black onyx, and maids andvalets. After breakfast, when Honora sat down to write to Aunt Mary, shedescribed the suite of rooms in which they lived, --the brass beds, theelectric night lamps, the mahogany French furniture, the heavy carpets, and even the white-tiled bathroom. There was a marvellous arrangement inthe walls with which Edith was never tired of playing, a circular platecovered with legends of every conceivable want, from a newspaper to aneedle and thread and a Scotch whiskey highball. 

At breakfast, more stimulants--of a mental nature, of course. Solomon inall his glory had never broken eggs in such a dining room. It had onyxpillars, too, and gilt furniture, and table after table of the whitestnapery stretched from one end of it to the other. The glass and silverwas all of a special pattern, and an obsequious waiter handed Honora amenu in a silver frame, with a handle. One side of the menu was inEnglish, and the other in French. All around them were well-dressed, well-fed, prosperous-looking people, talking and laughing in subduedtones as they ate. And Honora had a strange feeling of being one of them, of being as rich and prosperous as they, of coming into a long-deferredinheritance. 

The mad excitement of that day in New York is a faint memory now, so muchhas Honora lived since then. We descendants of rigid Puritans, of pioneertobacco-planters and frontiersmen, take naturally to a luxury such as theworld has never seen--as our right. We have abolished kings, in orderthat as many of us as possible may abide in palaces. In one day Honoraforgot the seventeen years spent in the "little house under the hill, " asthough these had never been. Cousin Eleanor, with a delightful sense ofwrong-doing, yielded to the temptation to adorn her; and the saleswomen, who knew Mrs. Hanbury, made indiscreet-remarks. Such a figure and such aface, and just enough of height! Two new gowns were ordered, to be triedon at Sutcliffe, and as many hats, and an ulster, and heaven knows whatelse. Memory fails. 

In the evening they went to a new comic opera, and it is the music ofthat which brings back the day most vividly to Honora's mind. 

In the morning they took an early train to Sutcliffe Manors, on theHudson. It is an historic place. First of all, after leaving the station, you climb through the little town clinging to the hillside; and Honorawas struck by the quaint houses and shops which had been places of barterbefore the Revolution. The age of things appealed to her. It was abrilliant day at the very end of September, the air sharp, and here andthere a creeper had been struck crimson. Beyond the town, on the slopes, were other new sights to stimulate the imagination: country houses--notmerely houses in the country, but mansions--enticingly hidden among greattrees in a way to whet Honora's curiosity as she pictured to herself theblissful quality of the life which their owners must lead. Long, curvingdriveways led up to the houses from occasional lodges; and once, asthough to complete the impression, a young man and two women, superblymounted, came trotting out of one of these driveways, talking andlaughing gayly. Honora took a good look at the man. He was not handsome, but had, in fact, a distinguished and haunting ugliness. The girls werestraight-featured and conventional to the last degree. 

Presently they came to the avenue of elms that led up to the long, lowbuildings of the school. 

Little more will be necessary, in the brief account of Honora's life atboarding-school, than to add an humble word of praise on the excellenceof Miss Turner's establishment. That lady, needless to say, did notadvertise in the magazines, or issue a prospectus. Parents were more orless in the situation of the candidates who desired the honour andprivilege of whitewashing Tom Sawyer's fence. If you were a parent, andwere allowed to confide your daughter to Miss Turner, instead ofdemanding a prospectus, you gave thanks to heaven, and spoke about it toyour friends. 

The life of the young ladies, of course, was regulated on the strictestprinciples. Early rising, prayers, breakfast, studies; the daily walk, rain or shine, under the watchful convoy of Miss Hood, the girls incolumns of twos; tennis on the school court, or skating on the schoolpond. Cotton Mather himself could not have disapproved of the Sundays, nor of the discourse of the elderly Doctor Moale (which you heard if youwere not a Presbyterian), although the reverend gentleman was distinctlyAnglican in appearance and manners. Sometimes Honora felt devout, andwould follow the service with the utmost attention. Her religion came inwaves. On the Sundays when the heathen prevailed she studied thecongregation, grew to distinguish the local country families; and, if thetruth must be told, watched for several Sundays for that ugly yethandsome young man whom she had seen on horseback. But he never appeared, and presently she forgot him. 

Had there been a prospectus (which is ridiculous!), the great secret ofMiss Turner's school could not very well have been mentioned in it. TheEnglish language, it is to be feared, is not quite flexible enough tomention this secret with delicacy. Did Honora know it? Who can say?Self-respecting young ladies do not talk about such things, and Honorawas nothing if not self-respecting. 

 "SUTCLIFFE MANORS, October 15th. 

 "DEAREST AUNT MARY: As I wrote you, I continue to miss you and Uncle Tom dreadfully, --and dear old Peter, too; and Cathy and Bridget and Mary Ann. And I hate to get up at seven o'clock. And Miss Hood, who takes us out walking and teaches us composition, is such a ridiculously strict old maid--you would laugh at her. And the Sundays are terrible. Miss Turner makes us read the Bible for a whole hour in the afternoon, and reads to us in the evening. And Uncle Tom was right when he said we should have nothing but jam and bread and butter for supper: oh, yes, and cold meat. I am always ravenously hungry. I count the days until Christmas, when I shall have some really good things to eat again. And of course I cannot wait to see you all. 

 "I do not mean to give you the impression that I am not happy here, and I never can be thankful enough to dear Cousin Eleanor for sending me. Some of the girls are most attractive. Among others, I have become great friends with Ethel Wing, who is tall and blond and good-looking; and her clothes, though simple, are beautiful. To hear her imitate Miss Turner or Miss Hood or Dr. Moale is almost as much fun as going to the theatre. You must have heard of her father--he is the Mr. Wing who owns all the railroads and other things, and they have a house in Newport and another in New York, and a country place and a yacht. 

 "I like Sarah Wycliffe very much. She was brought up abroad, and we lead the French class together. Her father has a house in Paris, which they only use for a month or so in the year: an hotel, as the French call it. And then there is Maude Capron, from Philadelphia, whose father is Secretary of War. I have now to go to my class in English composition, but I will write to you again on Saturday. 

 "Your loving niece, "HONORA. "

The Christmas holidays came, and went by like mileposts from the windowof an express train. There was a Glee Club: there were dances, andprivate theatricals in Mrs. Dwyer's new house, in which it was imperativethat Honora should take part. There was no such thing as getting up forbreakfast, and once she did not see Uncle Tom for two whole days. Heasked her where she was staying. It was the first Christmas sheremembered spending without Peter. His present appeared, but perhaps itwas fortunate, on the whole, that he was in Texas, trying a case. Itseemed almost no time at all before she was at the station again, clinging to Aunt Mary: but now the separation was not so hard, and shehad Edith and Mary for company, and George, a dignified and responsiblesophomore at Harvard. 

Owing to the sudden withdrawal from school of little Louise Simpson, theCincinnati girl who had shared her room during the first term, Honora hada new room-mate after the holidays, Susan Holt. Susan was not beautiful, but she was good. Her nose turned up, her hair Honora described as anegative colour, and she wore it in defiance of all prevailing modes. Ifyou looked very hard at Susan (which few people ever did), you saw thatshe had remarkable blue eyes: they were the eyes of a saint. She wasneither tall nor short, and her complexion was not all that it might havebeen. In brief, Susan was one of those girls who go through a whole termat boarding--school without any particular notice from the more brilliantHonoras and Ethel Wings. 

In some respects, Susan was an ideal room-mate. She read the Bible everynight and morning, and she wrote many letters home. Her ruling passion, next to religion, was order, and she took it upon herself to arrangeHonora's bureau drawers. It is needless to say that Honora accepted theseministrations and that she found Susan's admiration an entirely naturalsentiment. Susan was self-effacing, and she enjoyed listening to Honora'sviews on all topics. 

Susan, like Peter, was taken for granted. She came from somewhere, andafter school was over, she would go somewhere. She lived in New York, Honora knew, and beyond that was not curious. We never know when we areentertaining an angel unawares. One evening, early in May, when she wentup to prepare for supper she found Susan sitting in the window reading aletter, and on the floor beside her was a photograph. Honora picked itup. It was the picture of a large country house with many chimneys, takenacross a wide green lawn. 

"Susan, what's this?"

Susan looked up. 

"Oh, it's Silverdale. My brother Joshua took it. "

"Silverdale?" repeated Honora. 

"It's our place in the country, " Susan replied. "The family moved up lastweek. You see, the trees are just beginning to bud. "

Honora was silent a moment, gazing at the picture. 

"It's very beautiful, isn't it? You never told me about it. "

"Didn't I?" said Susan. "I think of it very often. It has always seemedmuch more like home to me than our house in New York, and I love itbetter than any spot I know. "

Honora gazed at Susan, who had resumed her reading. 

"And you are going there when school is over. "

"Oh, yes, " said Susan; "I can hardly wait. " Suddenly she put down herletter, and looked at Honora. 

"And you, " she asked, "where are you going?"

"I don't know. Perhaps--perhaps I shall go to the sea for a while with mycousins. "

It was foolish, it was wrong. But for the life of her Honora could notsay she was going to spend the long hot summer in St. Louis. The thoughtof it had haunted her for weeks: and sometimes, when the other girls werediscussing their plans, she had left them abruptly. And now she was awarethat Susan's blue eyes were fixed upon her, and that they had a strangeand penetrating quality she had never noticed before: a certaintenderness, an understanding that made Honora redden and turn. 

"I wish, " said Susan, slowly, "that you would come and stay awhile withme. Your home is so far away, and I don't know when I shall see youagain. "

"Oh, Susan, " she murmured, "it's awfully good of you, but I'm afraid--Icouldn't. "

She walked to the window, and stood looking out for a moment at thebudding trees. Her heart was beating faster, and she was strangelyuncomfortable. 

"I really don't expect to go to the sea, Susan, " she said. "You see, myaunt and uncle are all alone in St. Louis, and I ought to go back tothem. If--if my father had lived, it might have been different. He died, and my mother, when I was little more than a year old. "

Susan was all sympathy. She slipped her hand into Honora's. 

"Where did he live?" she asked. 

"Abroad, " answered Honora. "He was consul at Nice, and had a villa therewhen he died. And people said he had an unusually brilliant career beforehim. My aunt and uncle brought me up, and my cousin, Mrs. Hanbury, Edith's mother, and Mary's, sent me here to school. "

Honora breathed easier after this confession, but it was long beforesleep came to her that night. She wondered what it would be like to visitat a great country house such as Silverdale, what it would be like tolive in one. It seemed a strange and cruel piece of irony on the part ofthe fates that Susan, instead of Honora, should have been chosen for sucha life: Susan, who would have been quite as happy spending her summers inSt. Louis, and taking excursions in the electric cars: Susan, who hadnever experienced that dreadful, vacuum-like feeling, who had noambitious craving to be satisfied. Mingled with her flushes of affectionfor Susan was a certain queer feeling of contempt, of which Honora wasashamed. 

Nevertheless, in the days that followed, a certain metamorphosis seemedto have taken place in Susan. She was still the same modest, self-effacing, helpful roommate, but in Honora's eyes she had changed--Honora could no longer separate her image from the vision ofSilverdale. And, if the naked truth must be told, it was due toSilverdale that Susan owes the honour of her first mention in thosedescriptive letters from Sutcliffe, which Aunt Mary has kept to this day. 

Four days later Susan had a letter from her mother containing anastonishing discovery. There could be no mistake, --Mrs. Holt had broughtHonora to this country as a baby. 

"Why, Susan, " cried Honora, "you must have been the other baby. "

"But you were the beautiful one, " replied Susan, generously. "I haveoften heard mother tell about it, and how every one on the ship noticedyou, and how Hortense cried when your aunt and uncle took you away. Andto think we have been rooming together all these months and did not knowthat we were really--old friends. 

"And Honora, mother says you must come to Silverdale to pay us a visitwhen school closes. She wants to see you. I think, " added Susan, smiling, "I think she feels responsible, for you. She says that you must give meyour aunts address, and that she will write to her. "

"Oh, I'd so like to go, Susan. And I don't think Aunt Mary would object---for a little while. "

Honora lost no time in writing the letter asking for permission, and itwas not until after she had posted it that she felt a sudden, sharpregret as she thought of them in their loneliness. But the postponementof her homecoming would only be for a fortnight at best. And she had seenso little!

In due time Aunt Mary's letter arrived. There was no mention ofloneliness in it, only of joy that Honora was to have the opportunity tovisit such a place as Silverdale. Aunt Mary, it seems, had seen picturesof it long ago in a magazine of the book club, in an article concerningone of Mrs. Holt's charities--a model home for indiscreet young women. Atthe end of the year, Aunt Mary added, she had bought the number of themagazine, because of her natural interest in Mrs. Holt on Honora'saccount. Honora cried a little over that letter, but her determination togo to Silverdale was unshaken. 

June came at last, and the end of school. The subject of Miss Turner'sannual talk was worldliness. Miss Turner saw signs, she regretted to say, of a lowering in the ideals of American women: of a restlessness, of adesire for what was a false consideration and recognition; for power. Some of her own pupils, alas! were not free from this fault. Ethel Wing, who was next to Honora, nudged her and laughed, and passed her some ofMaillard's chocolates, which she had in her pocket. Woman's place, continued Miss Turner, was the home, and she hoped they would all makegood wives. She had done her best to prepare them to be such. Independence, they would find, was only relative: no one had itcompletely. And she hoped that none of her scholars would ever descend tothat base competition to outdo one's neighbours, so characteristic of thecountry to-day. 

The friends, and even the enemies, were kissed good-by, with pledges ofeternal friendship. Cousin Eleanor Hanbury came for Edith and Mary, andhoped Honora would enjoy herself at Silverdale. Dear Cousin Eleanor! Herheart was large, and her charity unpretentious. She slipped into Honora'sfingers, as she embraced her, a silver-purse with some gold coins in it, and bade her not to forget to write home very often. 

"You know what pleasure it will give them, my dear, " she said, as shestepped on the train for New York. 

"And I am going home soon, Cousin Eleanor, " replied Honora, with a littletouch of homesickness in her voice. 

"I know, dear, " said Mrs. Hanbury. But there was a peculiar, almostwistful expression on her face as she kissed Honora again, as of one whoassents to a fiction in order to humour a child. 

As the train pulled out, Ethel Wing waved to her from the midst of agroup of girls on the wide rear platform of the last car. It was Mr. Wing's private car, and was going to Newport. 

"Be good, Honora!" she cried.