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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/5374.txt b/5374.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fc7cd44 --- /dev/null +++ b/5374.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3282 @@ +Project Gutenberg's A Modern Chronicle, Volume 1, by Winston Churchill + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Modern Chronicle, Volume 1 + +Author: Winston Churchill + +Release Date: October 19, 2004 [EBook #5374] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MODERN CHRONICLE, VOLUME 1 *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +A MODERN CHRONICLE + +By Winston Churchill + + + +CONTENTS OF THE ENTIRE SET: + +BOOK I. + +Volume 1. +I. WHAT'S IN HEREDITY? +II. PERDITA RECALLED +III. CONCERNING PROVIDENCE +IV. OF TEMPERAMENT +V. IN WHICH PROVIDENCE BEEPS FAITH +VI. HONORA HAS A GLIMPSE OF THE WORLD + +Volume 2. +VII. THE OLYMPIAN ORDER +VIII. A CHAPTER OF CONQUESTS +IX. IN WHICH THE VICOMTE CONTINUES HIS STUDIES +X. IN WHICH HONORA WIDENS HER HORIZON +XI. WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN +XII. WHICH CONTAINS A SURPRISE FOR MRS. HOLT + + +BOOK II + +Volume 3. +I. SO LONG AS YE BOTH SHALL LIVE +II. "STAFFORD PARK" +III. THE GREAT UNATTACHED +IV. THE NEW DOCTRINE +V. QUICKSANDS +VI. GAD AND MENI + +Volume 4. +VII. OF CERTAIN DELICATE MATTERS +VIII. OF MENTAL PROCESSES-FEMININE AND INSOLUBLE +IX. INTRODUCING A REVOLUTIONIZING VEHICLE +X. ON THE ART OF LION TAMING +XI. CONTAINING SOME REVELATIONS + + +BOOK III + +Volume 5. +I. ASCENDI +II. THE PATH OF PHILANTHROPY +III. VINELAND +IV. THE VIKING +V. 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 HEART +IX. WYLIE STREET +X. THE PRICE OF FREEDOM + +Volume 7. +XI. IN WHICH IT IS ALL DONE OVER AGAIN +XII. THE ENTRANCE INTO EDEN +XIII. OF THE WORLD BEYOND THE GATES. +XIV. CONTAINING PHILOSOPHY FROM MR. GRAINGER +XV. THE PILLARS OF SOCIETY + +Volume 8. +XVI. IN WHICH A MIRROR IS HELD UP +XVII. THE RENEWAL OF AN ANCIENT HOSPITALITY +XVIII. 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 in +the last quarter of the Nineteenth Century, at Nice, in France, and she +spent the early years of her life in St. Louis, a somewhat conservative +old city on the banks of the Mississippi River. Her father was Randolph +Leffingwell, and he died in the early flower of his manhood, while +filling with a grace that many remember the post of United States Consul +at Nice. As a linguist he was a phenomenon, and his photograph in the +tortoise-shell frame proves indubitably, to anyone acquainted with the +fashions 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 through +Kentucky in a coach and six, and he was the equal in appearance and +manners of any duke who lingered beside classic seas. + +Honora has often pictured to herself a gay villa set high above the +curving shore, the amethyst depths shading into emerald, laced with +milk-white foam, the vivid colours of the town, the gay costumes; the +excursions, the dinner-parties presided over by the immaculate young +consul in three languages, and the guests chosen from the haute noblesse +of Europe. Such was the vision in her youthful mind, added to by degrees +as she grew into young-ladyhood and surreptitiously became familiar with +the writings of Ouida and the Duchess, and other literature of an +educating cosmopolitan nature. + +Honora's biography should undoubtedly contain a sketch of Mrs. Randolph +Leffingwell. Beauty and dash and a knowledge of how to seat a table seem +to have been the lady's chief characteristics; the only daughter of a +carefully dressed and carefully, preserved widower, likewise a +linguist,--whose super-refined tastes and the limited straits to which +he, the remaining scion of an old Southern family, had been reduced by a +gentlemanly contempt for money, led him 'to choose Paris rather than New +York as a place of residence. One of the occasional and carefully planned +trips to the Riviera proved fatal to the beautiful but reckless Myrtle +Allison. She, who might have chosen counts or dukes from the Tagus to the +Danube, or even crossed the Channel; took the dashing but impecunious +American consul, with a faith in his future that was sublime. Without +going over too carefully the upward path which led to the post of their +country's representative at the court of St. James, neither had the +slightest doubt that Randolph Leffingwell would tread it. + +It is needless to dwell upon the chagrin of Honora's maternal +grandfather, Howard Allison Esquire, over this turn of affairs, this +unexpected bouleversement, as he spoke of it in private to his friends in +his Parisian club. For many years he had watched the personal attractions +of his daughter grow, and a brougham and certain other delights not to be +mentioned had gradually become, in his mind, synonymous with old age. The +brougham would have on its panels the Allison crest, and his +distinguished (and titled) son-in-law would drop in occasionally at the +little apartment on the Boulevard Haussmann. Alas, for visions, for +legitimate hopes shattered forever! On the day that Randolph Leffingwell +led Miss Allison down the aisle of the English church the vision of the +brougham and the other delights faded. Howard Allison went back to his +club. + +Three years later, while on an excursion with Sir Nicholas Baker and a +merry party on the Italian aide, the horses behind which Mr. and Mrs. +Leffingwell were driving with their host ran away, and in the flight +managed to precipitate the vehicle, and themselves, down the side of one +of the numerous deep valleys of the streams seeking the Mediterranean. +Thus, by a singular caprice of destiny Honors was deprived of both her +parents at a period which--some chose to believe--was the height of their +combined glories. Randolph Leffingwell lived long enough to be taken back +to Nice, and to consign his infant daughter and sundry other unsolved +problems to his brother Tom. + +Brother Tom--or Uncle Tom, as we must call him with Honora--cheerfully +accepted the charge. For his legacies in life had been chiefly blessings +in disguise. He was paying teller of the Prairie Bank, and the +thermometer registered something above 90 deg. Fahrenheit on the July +morning when he stood behind his wicket reading a letter from Howard +Allison, Esquire, relative to his niece. Mr. Leffingwell was at this +period of his life forty-eight, but the habit he had acquired of assuming +responsibilities and burdens seemed to have had the effect of making his +age indefinite. He was six feet tall, broad-shouldered, his mustache and +hair already turning; his eyebrows were a trifle bushy, and his eyes +reminded men of one eternal and highly prized quality--honesty. They were +blue grey. Ordinarily they shed a light which sent people away from his +window the happier without knowing why; but they had been known, on rare +occasions, to flash on dishonesty and fraud like the lightnings of the +Lord. Mr. Isham, the president of the bank, coined a phrase about him. He +said that Thomas Leffingwell was constitutionally honest. + +Although he had not risen above the position of paying teller, Thomas +Leffingwell had a unique place in the city of his birth; and the esteem +in which he was held by capitalists and clerks proves that character +counts for something. On his father's failure and death he had entered +the Prairie Bank, at eighteen, and never left it. If he had owned it, he +could 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 seersucker +coat reading the unquestionably pompous letter of Mr. Allison announcing +that his niece was on the high seas, he returned the greetings of his +friends with his usual kindness and cheer. In an adjoining compartment a +long-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 he +was a favourite in the bank, where he had been introduced by Mr. +Leffingwell himself. He was an orphan and lived with his grandmother, an +impoverished old lady with good blood in her veins who boarded in +Graham's Row, on Olive Street. Suffice it to add, at this time, that he +worshipped Mr. Leffingwell, and that he was back in a twinkling with the +information that Mr. Isham was awaiting him. + +The president was seated at his desk. In spite of the thermometer he gave +no appearance of discomfort in his frock-coat. He had scant, sandy-grey +whiskers, a tightly closed and smooth-shaven upper lip, a nose with-a +decided ridge, and rather small but penetrating eyes in which the blue +pigment had been used sparingly. His habitual mode of speech was both +brief and sharp, but people remarked that he modified it a little for Tom +Leffingwell. + +"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 the +bank president's characteristics was an extreme interest in the private +affairs of those who came within his zone of influence and especially +when these affairs evinced any irregularity. + +"Randolph again?" he asked quickly. + +Tom walked to the window, and stood looking out into the street. His +voice 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 voice +was firm, his face certainly betrayed no feeling, but a flitting gleam of +satisfaction 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, that +journey to New York (their first) of two nights and two days to fetch +Honora. We need not dwell upon all that befell them. The first view of +the Hudson, the first whiff of the salt air on this unwonted holiday, the +sights of this crowded city of wealth,--all were tempered by the thought +of the child coming into their lives. They were standing on the pier when +the windows were crimson in the early light, and at nine o'clock on that +summer's morning the Albania was docked, and the passengers came crowding +down the gang-plank. Prosperous tourists, most of them, with servants and +stewards carrying bags of English design and checked steamer rugs; and at +last a ruddy-faced bonne with streamers and a bundle of ribbons and +laces--Honora--Honora, aged eighteen months, gazing at a subjugated +world. + +"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. Three +children of various sizes clung to her skirts, and a younger nurse +carried a golden-haired little girl of Honora's age. A lady and gentleman +followed. The lady was beginning to look matronly, and no second glance +was required to perceive that she was a person of opinion and character. +Mr. Holt was smaller than his wife, neat in dress and unobtrusive in +appearance. In the rich Mrs. Holt, the friend of the Randolph +Leffingwells, Aunt Mary was prepared to find a more vapidly fashionable +personage, and had schooled herself forthwith. + +"You are Mrs. Thomas Leffingwell?" she asked. "Well, I am relieved." The +lady's eyes, travelling rapidly over Aunt Mary's sober bonnet and brooch +and gown, made it appear that these features in Honora's future guardian +gave her the relief in question. "Honora, this is your aunt." + +Honora smiled from amidst the laces, and Aunt Mary, only too ready to +capitulate, surrendered. She held out her arms. Tears welled up in the +Frenchwoman's eyes as she abandoned her charge. + +"Pauvre mignonne!" she cried. + +But Mrs. Holt rebuked the nurse sharply, in French,--a language with +which neither Aunt Mary nor Uncle Tom was familiar. Fortunately, perhaps. +Mrs. Holt's remark was to the effect that Honora was going to a sensible +home. + +"Hortense loves her better than my own children," said that lady. + +Honora seemed quite content in the arms of Aunt Mary, who was gazing so +earnestly 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 then +she declined politely. While grossing on the steamer, Mrs. Holt had +decided quite clearly in her mind just what she was going to say to the +child's future guardian, but there was something in Aunt Mary's voice and +manner which made these remarks seem unnecessary--although Mrs. Holt was +secretly disappointed not to deliver them. + +"It was fortunate that we happened to, be in Nice at the time," she said +with the evident feeling that some explanation was due. "I did not know +poor Mrs. Randolph Leffingwell very--very intimately, or Mr. Leffingwell. +It was such a sudden--such a terrible affair. But Mr. Holt and I were +only 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, being +tolerably sure that Mrs. Thomas Leffingwell understood. She had cleared +her 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 little +trunk, and settling certain matters with Mr. Holt, they said good-by to +her late kind protectors, and started off for the nearest street-cars, +Honora pulling Uncle Tom's mustache. More than one pedestrian paused to +look back at the tall man carrying the beautiful child, bedecked like a +young princess, and more than one passenger in the street cars smiled at +them both. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +PERDITA RECALLED + +Saint Louis, or that part of it which is called by dealers in real estate +the choice residence section, grew westward. And Uncle Tom might be said +to have been in the vanguard of the movement. In the days before Honora +was born he had built his little house on what had been a farm on the +Olive Street Road, at the crest of the second ridge from the river. Up +this ridge, with clanking traces, toiled the horse-cars that carried +Uncle Tom downtown to the bank and Aunt Mary to market. + +Fleeing westward, likewise, from the smoke, friends of Uncle Tom's and +Aunt Mary's gradually surrounded them--building, as a rule, the high +Victorian mansions in favour at that period, which were placed in the +centre of commodious yards. For the friends of Uncle Tom and Aunt Mary +were for the most part rich, and belonged, as did they, to the older +families of the city. Mr. Dwyer's house, with its picture gallery, was +across the street. + +In the midst of such imposing company the little dwelling which became +the home of our heroine sat well back in a plot that might almost be +called a garden. In summer its white wooden front was nearly hidden by +the quivering leaves of two tall pear trees. On the other side of the +brick walk, and near the iron fence, was an elm and a flower bed that was +Uncle Tom's pride and the admiration of the neighbourhood. Honora has but +to shut her eyes to see it aflame with tulips at Eastertide. The eastern +wall of the house was a mass of Virginia creeper, and beneath that +another flower bed, and still another in the back-yard behind the lattice +fence covered with cucumber vine. There were, besides, two maples and two +apricot trees, relics of the farm, and of blessed memory. Such apricots! +Visions of hot summer evenings come back, with Uncle Tom, in his +seersucker coat, with his green watering-pot, bending over the beds, and +Aunt Mary seated upright in her chair, looking up from her knitting with +a loving eye. + +Behind the lattice, on these summer evenings, stands the militant figure +of that old retainer, Bridget the cook, her stout arms akimbo, ready to +engage in vigorous banter should Honora deign to approach. + +"Whisht, 'Nora darlint, it's a young lady yell be soon, and the beaux +a-comin' 'round!" she would cry, and throw back her head and laugh until +the tears were in her eyes. + +And the princess, a slim figure in an immaculate linen frock with red +ribbons 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, Mary +Ann, the housemaid, whose kitchen chair was tilted up against the side of +the woodshed. "It'll be Miss Honora next, and George Hanbury here to-day +with his eye through a knothole in the fence, out of his head for a sight +of ye." + +George Hanbury was Honora's cousin, and she did not deem his admiration a +subject 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 to +Honora at twelve years of age. Perdita may have had such dreams. She had +been born, she knew, in some wondrous land by the shores of the summer +seas, not at all like St. Louis, and friends and relatives had not +hesitated to remark in her hearing that she resembled--her father,--that +handsome father who surely must have been a prince, whose before-mentioned +photograph in the tortoise-shell frame was on the bureau in her little +room. So far as Randolph Leffingwell was concerned, photography had not +been invented for nothing. Other records of him remained which Honora had +likewise seen: one end of a rose-covered villa--which Honora thought was +a wing of his palace; a coach and four he was driving, and which had +chanced to belong to an Englishman, although the photograph gave no +evidence of this ownership. Neither Aunt Mary nor Uncle Tom had ever +sought--for reasons perhaps obvious--to correct the child's impression of +an extraordinary paternity. + +Aunt Mary was a Puritan of Southern ancestry, and her father had been a +Presbyterian minister, Uncle Tom was a member of the vestry of a church +still under Puritan influences. As a consequence for Honora, there were +Sunday afternoons--periods when the imaginative faculty, in which she was +by no means lacking, was given full play. She would sit by the hour in +the swing Uncle Tom had hung for her under the maple near the lattice, +while castles rose on distant heights against blue skies. There was her +real home, in a balconied chamber that overlooked mile upon mile of +rustling forest in the valley; and when the wind blew, the sound of it +was like the sea. Honora did not remember the sea, but its music was +often in her ears. + +She would be aroused from these dreams of greatness by the appearance of +old Catherine, her nurse, on the side porch, reminding her that it was +time to wash for supper. No princess could have had a more humble +tiring-woman than Catherine. + +Honora cannot be unduly blamed. When she reached the "little house under +the hill" (as Catherine called the chamber beneath the eaves), she beheld +reflected in the mirror an image like a tall, white flower that might +indeed have belonged to a princess. Her hair, the colour of burnt sienna, +fell evenly to her shoulders; her features even then had regularity and +hauteur; her legs, in their black silk stockings, were straight; and the +simple white lawn frock made the best of a slender figure. Those frocks +of Honora's were a continual source of wonder and sometimes of envy--to +Aunt Mary's friends; who returned from the seaside in the autumn, after a +week among the fashions in Boston or New York, to find Honora in the +latest models, and better dressed than their own children. Aunt Mary made +no secret of the methods by which these seeming miracles were performed, +and showed Cousin Eleanor Hanbury the fashion plates in the English +periodicals. Cousin Eleanor sighed. + +"Mary, you are wonderful," she would say. "Honora's clothes are +better-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 Aunt +Mary. She looked like a little Quakeress. Her silvered hair was parted in +the middle and had, in spite of palpable efforts towards tightness and +repression, a perceptible ripple in it. Grey was her only concession to +colour, and her gowns and bonnets were of a primness which belonged to +the past. Repression, or perhaps compression, was her note, for the +energy confined within her little body was a thing to have astounded +scientists: And Honora grew to womanhood and reflection before she had. +guessed or considered that her aunt was possessed of intense emotions +which had no outlet. Her features were regular, her shy eye had the +clearness of a forest pool. She believed in predestination, which is to +say that she was a fatalist; and while she steadfastly continued to +regard this world as a place of sorrow and trials, she concerned herself +very little about her participation in a future life. Old Dr. Ewing, the +rector of St. Anne's, while conceding that no better or more charitable +woman existed, found it so exceedingly difficult to talk to her, on the +subject of religion that he had never tried it but once. + +Such was Aunt Mary. The true student of human nature should not find it +surprising that she spoiled Honora and strove--at what secret expense, +care, and self-denial to Uncle Tom and herself, none will ever know--to +adorn the child that she might appear creditably among companions whose +parents were more fortunate in this world's goods; that she denied +herself to educate Honora as these other children were educated. Nor is +it astonishing that she should not have understood the highly complex +organism of the young lady we have chosen for our heroine, who was +shaken, at the age of thirteen, by unfulfilled longings. + +Very early in life Honora learned to dread the summer, when one by one +the families of her friends departed until the city itself seemed a +remote 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 servants +who had been left behind chattered on the front steps. Honora could not +bear the sound of the trains that drifted across the night, and the sight +of the trunks piled in the Hanburys' hall, in Wayland Square, always +filled her with a sickening longing. Would the day ever come when she, +too, would depart for the bright places of the earth? Sometimes, when she +looked in the mirror, she was filled with a fierce belief in a destiny to +sit in the high seats, to receive homage and dispense bounties, to +discourse with great intellects, to know London and Paris and the marts +and centres of the world as her father had. To escape--only to escape +from the prison walls of a humdrum existence, and to soar! + +Let us, if we can, reconstruct an August day when all (or nearly all) of +Honora's small friends were gone eastward to the mountains or the +seaside. In "the little house under the hill," the surface of which was a +hot slate roof, Honora would awake about seven o'clock to find old +Catherine bending over her in a dun-coloured calico dress, with the light +fiercely beating against the closed shutters that braved it so +unflinchingly throughout the day. + +"The birds are before ye, Miss Honora, honey, and your uncle waterin' his +roses this half-hour." + +Uncle Tom was indeed an early riser. As Honora dressed (Catherine +assisting as at a ceremony), she could see him, in his seersucker coat, +bending tenderly over his beds; he lived enveloped in a peace which has +since struck wonder to Honora's soul. She lingered in her dressing, even +in those days, falling into reveries from which Catherine gently and +deferentially aroused her; and Uncle Tom would be carving the beefsteak +and Aunt Mary pouring the coffee when she finally arrived in the dining +room 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 kiss +Aunt Mary and walk to the corner to wait for the ambling horse-car that +was to take him to the bank. Sometimes Honora went to the corner with +him, and he waved her good-by from the platform as he felt in his pocket +for the nickel that was to pay his fare. + +When Honora returned, Aunt Mary had donned her apron, and was +industriously aiding Mary Ann to wash the dishes and maintain the +customary high polish on her husband's share of the Leffingwell silver +which, standing on the side table, shot hither and thither rays of green +light that filtered through the shutters into the darkened room. The +child partook of Aunt Mary's pride in that silver, made for a Kentucky +great-grandfather Leffingwell by a famous Philadelphia silversmith +three-quarters of a century before. Honora sighed. + +"What's the matter, Honora?" asked Aunt Mary, without pausing in her +vigorous rubbing. + +"The Leffingwells used to be great once upon a time, didn't they, Aunt +Mary?" + +"Your Uncle Tom," answered Aunt Mary, quietly, "is the greatest man I +know, child." + +"And my father must have been a great man, too," cried Honora, "to have +been a consul and drive coaches." + +Aunt Mary was silent. She was not a person who spoke easily on difficult +subjects. + +"Why don't you ever talk to me about my father, Aunt Mary? Uncle Tom +does." + +"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 at +my 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, whose +head was thrown back. + +"What kind of ambition do you mean, Honora?" + +"Oh," cried Honora, "to be great and rich and powerful, and to be +somebody." + +"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 I +became great." + +Alas, that Aunt Mary, with all her will, should have such limited powers +of expression! She resumed her scrubbing of the silver before she spoke. + +"To do one's duty, to accept cheerfully and like a Christian the +responsibilities and burdens of life, is the highest form of greatness, +my child. Your Uncle Tom has had many things to trouble him; he has +always worked for others, and not for himself. And he is respected and +loved 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, and +owned horses. Isn't that being rich?" + +Poor Aunt Mary! + +"Honora," she answered, "there are some things you are too young to +understand. But try to remember, my dear, that happiness doesn't consist +in 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 an +upright, public-spirited man, and he thinks a great deal of your Uncle +Tom." + +"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 of +Mr. 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 little +imagination a child like Honora to bring up in the straight and narrow +path. + +"When I go on Sunday afternoons with Uncle Tom to see Mr. Dwyer's +pictures," Honora persisted, "I always feel that he is so glad to have +what 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, such +faults as this became as nothing. + +"And when" said Honora, "when Mrs. Dwyer has dinner-parties for +celebrated people who come here, why does she invite you in to see the +table?" + +"Out of kindness, Honora. Mrs. Dwyer knows that I enjoy looking at +beautiful things." + +"Why doesn't she invite you to the dinners?" asked Honora, hotly. "Our +family 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 that +I am not a person who can entertain distinguished people, and that I do +not go out, and that I haven't the money to buy evening dresses. And even +if 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 her +account of this conversation, was of the opinion that to take Honora to +task for her fancies would be waste of breath; that they would right +themselves 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 know +Honora 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'm +afraid it's given the child a taste for--for self-adornment." + +"I once had a fond belief that all women possessed such a taste," said +Uncle Tom, with a quizzical look at his own exception. "To tell you the +truth, I never classed it as a fault." + +"Then I don't see why you married me," said Aunt Mary--a periodical +remark of hers. "But, Tom, I do wish her to appear as well as the other +children, 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?" he +asked. + +"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 her +face, and smiled again. Although she held herself very straight, the top +of 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 never +dying interest, which held no taint of envy, in the doings of people more +fortunate than herself. In the long summer days, after her silver was +cleaned and her housekeeping and marketing finished, she read in the +book-club periodicals of royal marriages, embassy balls, of great town +and country houses and their owners at home and abroad. And she knew, by +means of a correspondence with Cousin Eleanor Hanbury and other +intimates, the kind of cottages in which her friends sojourned at the +seashore or in the mountains; how many rooms they had, and how many +servants, and very often who the servants were; she was likewise informed +on the climate, and the ease with which it was possible to obtain fresh +vegetables. 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, who +was ill, Honora further surprised her aunt by exclaiming: "How can you +talk of things other people have and not want them, Aunt Mary?" + +"Why should I desire what I cannot have, my dear? I take such pleasure +out of my friends' possessions as I can." + +"But you want to go to the seashore, I know you do. I've heard you say +so," 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. And +I know how the salt water smells--which is as much, perhaps, as I have +the right to hope for. But I have often thought it would be nice to sit +for a whole summer by the sea and listen to the waves dashing upon the +beach, like those in the Chase picture in Mr. Dwyer's gallery." + +Aunt Mary little guessed the unspeakable rebellion aroused in Honora by +this acknowledgment of being fatally circumscribed. Wouldn't Uncle Tom +ever 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 to +do his duty in that sphere where God had placed him. + +Poor Aunt Mary. Honora never asked her uncle such questions: to do so +never occurred to her. At peace with all men, he gave of his best to +children, and Honora remained a child. Next to his flowers, walking was +Uncle Tom's chief recreation, and from the time she could be guided by +the hand she went with him. His very presence had the gift of dispelling +longings, even in the young; the gift of compelling delight in simple +things. Of a Sunday afternoon, if the heat were not too great, he would +take Honora to the wild park that stretches westward of the city, and +something of the depth and intensity of his pleasure in the birds, the +forest, and the wild flowers would communicate itself to her. She learned +all unconsciously (by suggestion, as it were) to take delight in them; a +delight that was to last her lifetime, a never failing resource to which +she was to turn again and again. In winter, they went to the botanical +gardens 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 knew +him, and spoke to him with kindly respect. Nay, it seemed to Honora that +the very animals knew him, and offered themselves ingratiatingly to be +stroked by one whom they recognized as friend. Jaded horses in the street +lifted their noses; stray, homeless cats rubbed against his legs, and +vagrant dogs looked up at him trustfully with wagging tails. + +Yet his goodness, as Emerson would have said, had some edge to it. Honora +had seen the light of anger in his blue eye--a divine ray. Once he had +chastised her for telling Aunt Mary a lie (she could not have lied to +him) and Honora had never forgotten it. The anger of such a man had +indeed some element in it of the divine; terrible, not in volume, but in +righteous intensity. And when it had passed there was no occasion for +future warning. The memory of it lingered. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +CONCERNING PROVIDENCE + +What quality was it in Honora that compelled Bridget to stop her ironing +on Tuesdays in order to make hot waffles for a young woman who was late +to breakfast? Bridget, who would have filled the kitchen with righteous +wrath if Aunt Mary had transgressed the rules of the house, which were +like the laws of the Medes and Persians! And in Honora's early youth Mary +Ann, the housemaid, spent more than one painful evening writing home for +cockle shells and other articles to propitiate our princess, who rewarded +her with a winning smile and a kiss, which invariably melted the honest +girl into tears. The Queen of Scots never had a more devoted chamber +woman than old Catherine,--who would have gone to the stake with a smile +to 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 a +casual wish had been expressed. The saints themselves must at times have +been aweary from hearing Honora's name. + +Not to speak of Christmas! Christmas in the little house was one wild +delirium of joy. The night before the festival was, to all outward +appearances, an ordinary evening, when Uncle Tom sat by the fire in his +slippers, as usual, scouting the idea that there would be any Christmas +at all. Aunt Mary sewed, and talked with maddening calmness of the news +of the day; but for Honora the air was charged with coming events of the +first magnitude. The very furniture of the little sitting-room had a +different air, the room itself wore a mysterious aspect, and the +cannel-coal fire seemed to give forth a special quality of unearthly +light. + +"Is to-morrow Christmas?" Uncle Tom would exclaim. Bless me! Honora, I am +so 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,"--from +Aunt Mary. + +The unconscious irony in that command of Aunt Mary's!--to go right to +sleep! Many times was a head lifted from a small pillow, straining after +the meaning of the squeaky noises that came up from below! Not Santa +Claus. Honora's belief in him had merged into a blind faith in a larger +and even more benevolent, if material providence: the kind of providence +which Mr. Meredith depicts, and which was to say to Beauchamp: "Here's +your marquise;" a particular providence which, at the proper time, gave +Uncle Tom money, and commanded, with a smile, "Buy this for Honora--she +wants it." All-sufficient reason! Soul-satisfying philosophy, to which +Honora was to cling for many years of life. It is amazing how much can be +wrung from a reluctant world by the mere belief in this kind of +providence. + +Sleep came at last, in the darkest of the hours. And still in the dark +hours a stirring, a delicious sensation preceding reason, and the +consciousness 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 many +happy Christmases the like of this, Miss Honora." And Catherine's arms +were 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 at +all if ye was to make noise in the middle of the night--and it's little +better it is." + +Sleep! A despised waste of time in childhood. Catherine went to Mass, and +after an eternity, the grey December light began to sift through the +shutters, and human endurance had reached its limit. Honora, still +shivering, seized a fleecy wrapper (the handiwork of Aunt Mary) and +crept, a diminutive ghost, down the creaking stairway to the +sitting-room. A sitting-room which now was not a sitting-room, but for +to-day a place of magic. As though by a prearranged salute of the +gods,--at Honora's entrance the fire burst through the thick blanket of +fine coal which Uncle Tom had laid before going to bed, and with a little +gasp of joy that was almost pain, she paused on the threshold. That one +flash, like Pizarro's first sunrise over Peru, gilded the edge of +infinite possibilities. + +Needless to enumerate them. The whole world, as we know, was in a +conspiracy to spoil Honora. The Dwyers, the Cartwrights, the Haydens, the +Brices, the Ishams, and I know not how many others had sent their +tributes, and Honora's second cousins, the Hanburys, from the family +mansion behind the stately elms of Wayland Square--of which something +anon. A miniature mahogany desk, a prayer-book and hymnal which the +Dwyers had brought home from New York, endless volumes of a more secular +and (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 wonderful +coat, with hat to match, of a certain dark green velvet. When Aunt Mary +appeared, an hour or so later, Honora was surveying her magnificence in +the glass. + +"Oh, Aunt Mary!" she cried, with her arms tightly locked around her +aunt'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 Mary +did not explain that this coat had been her one engrossing occupation for +six weeks, at such times when Honora was out or tucked away safely in +bed. + +Perhaps Honora's face fell a little. Aunt Mary scanned it rather +anxiously. + +"Does that cause you to like it any less, Honora?" she asked. + +"Aunt Mary!" exclaimed Honora, in a tone of reproval. And added after a +little, "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 Peter +Erwin did not appear, bringing gifts. Peter Erwin, of whom we caught a +glimpse doing an errand for Uncle Tom in the bank. With the complacency +of the sun Honora was wont to regard this most constant of her +satellites. Her awakening powers of observation had discovered him in +bondage, and in bondage he had been ever since: for their acquaintance +had begun on the first Sunday afternoon after Honora's arrival in St. +Louis at the age of eighteen months. It will be remembered that Honora +was even then a coquette, and as she sat in her new baby-carriage under +the pear tree, flirted outrageously with Peter, who stood on one foot +from 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 Sunday +afternoons, a sort of understudy for Catherine. He took an amazing +delight in wheeling Honora up and down the yard, and up and down the +sidewalk. Brunhilde or Queen Elizabeth never wielded a power more +absolute, nor had an adorer more satisfactory; and of all his remarkable +talents, none were more conspicuous than his abilities to tell a story +and to choose a present. Emancipated from the perambulator, Honora would +watch for him at the window, and toddle to the gate to meet him, a +gentleman-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 open +the 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, is +six and twenty; a full-fledged lawyer, in the office of that most +celebrated of St. Louis practitioners, Judge Stephen Brice. For the Peter +Erwins of this world are queer creatures, and move rapidly without +appearing to the Honoras to move at all. A great many things have +happened to Peter since he had been a messenger boy in the bank. + +Needless to say, Uncle Tom had taken an interest in him. And, according +to Peter, this fact accounted for all the good fortune which had +followed. Shortly before the news came of his brother's death, Uncle Tom +had discovered that the boy who did his errands so willingly was going to +night school, and was the grandson of a gentleman who had fought with +credit in the Mexican War, and died in misfortune: the grandmother was +Peter's only living relative. Through Uncle Tom, Mr. Isham became +interested, and Judge Brice. There was a certain scholarship in the +Washington University which Peter obtained, and he worked his way through +the law school afterwards. + +A simple story, of which many a duplicate could be found in this country +of ours. In the course of the dozen years or so of its unravelling the +grandmother 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 he +was, as usual, on Christmas morning, his arms so full that he had had to +push open the gate with his foot. + +"Well, well, well, well!" he said, stopping short on the doorstep and +surveying 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 and +depositing his parcels on the mahogany horsehair sofa. He chose one, and +seized 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 had +divested it of the tissue paper, holly, and red ribbon in which he had so +carefully wrapped it. For it is a royal trait to thank with the same +graciousness and warmth the donors of the humblest and the greatest +offerings. + +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 whom +Peter ever forgot. Although the smoke was even at that period beginning +to creep westward, the sun poured through the lace curtains into the +little dining-room and danced on the silver coffeepot as Aunt Mary poured +out Peter's cup, and the blue china breakfast plates were bluer than ever +because it was Christmas. The humblest of familiar articles took on the +air of a present. And after breakfast, while Aunt Mary occupied herself +with that immemorial institution,--which was to lure hitherwards so many +prominent citizens of St. Louis during the day,--eggnogg, Peter surveyed +the offerings which transformed the sitting-room. The table had been +pushed back against the bookcases, the chairs knew not their +time-honoured places, and white paper and red ribbon littered the floor. +Uncle Tom, relegated to a corner, pretended to read his newspaper, while +Honora flitted from Peter's knees to his, or sat cross-legged on the +hearth-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's +see!" and he began counting on his fingers, which were long but very +strong--so strong that Honora could never loosen even one of them when +they gripped her. "One--two--three--eight Christmases before you are +twenty-one. We'll have enough things to set us up in housekeeping. Or +perhaps 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 are +always 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 not +wide 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 than +ever. + +"You've been reading--novels!" said Peter, in a terrible judicial voice. + +Honora flushed guiltily, and resumed her inspection of the stocking. Miss +Rossiter, a maiden lady of somewhat romantic tendencies, was librarian of +the 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 was +Harold who had had "a certain air of distinction." + +"It isn't very kind of you to make fun of me when I pay you a +compliment," replied Honora, with dignity. + +"I was naturally put out," he declared gravely, "because you said you +wouldn't marry me. But I don't intend to give up. No man who is worth his +salt 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 key +to it--was a description of Honora's future husband. We cannot violate +the 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, and +more of Randolph Leffingwell; and that he did not live in St. Louis. + +An event of Christmas, after church, was the dinner of which Uncle Tom +and Aunt Mary and Honora partook with Cousin Eleanor Hanbury, who had +been a Leffingwell, and was a first cousin of Honora's father. Honora +loved the atmosphere of the massive, yellow stone house in Wayland +Square, with its tall polished mahogany doors and thick carpets, with its +deferential darky servants, some of whom had been the slaves of her great +uncle. To Honora, gifted with imagination, the house had an odour all its +own; a rich, clean odour significant, in later life, of wealth and luxury +and spotless housekeeping. And she knew it from top to bottom. The +spacious upper floor, which in ordinary dwellings would have been an +attic, was the realm of young George and his sisters, Edith and Mary +(Aunt Mary's namesake). Rainy Saturdays, all too brief, Honora had passed +there, when the big dolls' house in the playroom became the scene of +domestic dramas which Edith rehearsed after she went to bed, although +Mary took them more calmly. In his tenderer years, Honora even fired +George, and riots occurred which took the combined efforts of Cousin +Eleanor and Mammy Lucy to quell. It may be remarked, in passing, that +Cousin Eleanor looked with suspicion upon this imaginative gift of +Honora's, and had several serious conversations with Aunt Mary on the +subject. + +It was true, in a measure, that Honora quickened to life everything she +touched, and her arrival in Wayland Square was invariably greeted with +shouts 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 the +reality of a fate not by any means to be lived down. If George rode the +huge rocking-horse, he was Paul Revere, or some equally historic figure, +and sometimes, to Edith's terror, he was compelled to assume the role of +Bluebeard, when Honora submitted to decapitation with a fortitude +amounting to stoicism. Hide and seek was altogether too tame for her, a +stake of life and death, or imprisonment or treasure, being a necessity. +And many times was Edith extracted from the recesses of the cellar in a +condition bordering on hysterics, the day ending tamely with a Bible +story or a selection from "Little Women" read by Cousin Eleanor. + +In autumn, and again in spring and early summer before the annual +departure of the Hanbury family for the sea, the pleasant yard with its +wide shade trees and its shrubbery was a land of enchantment threatened +by a genie. Black Bias, the family coachman, polishing the fat carriage +horses in the stable yard, was the genie; and George the intrepid knight +who, spurred by Honora, would dash in and pinch Bias in a part of his +anatomy which the honest darky had never seen. An ideal genie, for he +could 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 in +which they lived a commonplace spot, and indeed they never could realize +its tremendous possibilities in her absence. What would the Mediterranean +Sea and its adjoining countries be to us unless the wanderings of Ulysses +and AEneas had made them real? And what would Cousin Eleanor's yard have +been without Honora? Whatever there was of romance and folklore in Uncle +Tom's library Honora had extracted at an early age, and with astonishing +ease had avoided that which was dry and uninteresting. The result was a +nomenclature for Aunt Eleanor's yard, in which there was even a terra +incognita wherefrom venturesome travellers never returned, but were +transformed into wild beasts or monkeys. + +Although they acknowledged her leadership, Edith and Mary were sorry for +Honora, for they knew that if her father had lived she would have had a +house and garden like theirs, only larger, and beside a blue sea where it +was warm always. Honora had told them so, and colour was lent to her +assertions by the fact that their mother, when they repeated this to her, +only smiled sadly, and brushed her eyes with her handkerchief. She was +even more beautiful when she did so, Edith told her,--a remark which +caused Mrs. Hanbury to scan her younger daughter closely; it smacked of +Honora. + +"Was Cousin Randolph handsome?" Edith demanded. Mrs. Hanbury started, so +vividly there arose before her eyes a brave and dashing figure, clad in +grey English cloth, walking by her side on a sunny autumn morning in the +Rue de la Paix. Well she remembered that trip abroad with her mother, +Randolph's aunt, and how attentive he was, and showed them the best +restaurants in which to dine. He had only been in France a short time, +but his knowledge of restaurants and the world in general had been +amazing, and his acquaintances legion. He had a way, which there was no +resisting, of taking people by storm. + +"Yes, dear," answered Mrs. Hanbury, absently, when the child repeated the +question, "he was very handsome." + +"Honora says he would have been President," put in George. "Of course I +don't believe it. She said they lived in a palace by the sea in the south +of France, with gardens and fountains and a lot of things like that, and +princesses and princes and eunuchs--" + +"And what!" exclaimed Mrs. Hanbury, aghast. + +"I know," said George, contemptuously, "she got that out of the Arabian +Nights." But this suspicion did not prevent him, the next time Honora +regaled them with more adventures of the palace by the summer seas, from +listening with a rapt attention. No two tales were ever alike. His +admiration for Honora did not wane, but increased. It differed from that +of his sisters, however, in being a tribute to her creative faculties, +while Edith's breathless faith pictured her cousin as having passed +through as many adventures as Queen Esther. George paid her a +characteristic 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't +want a pony." + +He was forced to draw back a little from the heat of the conflagration he +had kindled. + +"George Hanbury," she cried, "don't you ever speak to me again! Never! Do +you understand?" + +It was thus that George, at some cost, had made a considerable discovery +which, for the moment, shook even his scepticism. Honora believed it all +herself. + +Cousin Eleanor Hanbury was a person, or personage, who took a deep and +abiding interest in her fellow-beings, and the old clothes of the Hanbury +family went unerringly to the needy whose figures most resembled those of +the original owners. For Mrs. Hanbury had a wide but comparatively +unknown charity list. She was, secretly, one of the many providence which +Honora accepted collectively, although it is by no means certain whether +Honora, at this period, would have thanked her cousin for tuition at Miss +Farmer's school, and for her daily tasks at French and music concerning +which Aunt Mary was so particular. On the memorable Christmas morning +when, arrayed in green velvet, she arrived with her aunt and uncle for +dinner in Wayland Square, Cousin Eleanor drew Aunt Mary into her bedroom +and 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 that +Tom has finished paying Randolph's debts." + +Mrs. Leffingwell was silent. + +"I thought not," said Mrs. Hanbury. "Now Randolph was my own cousin, and +I insist." + +Aunt Mary turned over the envelope, and there followed a few moments' +silence, broken only by the distant clamour of tin horns and other +musical 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 the +child 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 my +friends, Eleanor." + +Mrs. Hanbury laid her hand impulsively on Aunt Mary's. + +"No child I know of dresses half as well," said Mrs. Hanbury. "The +trouble you take--" + +"Is rewarded," said Aunt Mary. + +"Yes," Mrs. Hanbury agreed. "If my own daughters were half as good +looking, 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 good +looks," 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 accuse +her of the weakness of flattery. So Mrs. Hanbury smiled, and dropped the +subject. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +OF TEMPERAMENT + +We have the word of Mr. Cyrus Meeker that Honora did not have to learn to +dance. The art came to her naturally. Of Mr. Cyrus Meeker, whose +mustaches, at the age of five and sixty, are waxed as tight as ever, and +whose little legs to-day are as nimble as of yore. He has a memory like +Mr. Gladstone's, and can give you a social history of the city that is +well 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 of +his first lesson to that distinguished young gentleman; and how, although +Mr. Meeker's shins were sore, he pleaded nobly for Mr. George, who was +sent home in the carriage by himself,--a punishment, by the way, which +Mr. George desired above all things. + +This celebrated incident occurred in the new ballroom at the top of the +new house of young Mrs. Hayden, where the meetings of the dancing class +were held weekly. Today the soot, like the ashes of Vesuvius, spouting +from ten thousand soft-coal craters, has buried that house and the whole +district fathoms deep in social obscurity. And beautiful Mrs. Hayden what +has become of her? And Lucy Hayden, that doll-like darling of the gods? + +All this belongs, however, to another history, which may some day be +written. This one is Honora's, and must be got on with, for it is to be a +chronicle of lightning changes. Happy we if we can follow Honora, and we +must be prepared to make many friends and drop them in the process. + +Shortly after Mrs. Hayden had built that palatial house (which had a high +fence around its grounds and a driveway leading to a porte-cochere) and +had given her initial ball, the dancing class began. It was on a blue +afternoon in late November that Aunt Mary and Honora, with Cousin Eleanor +and the two girls, and George sulking in a corner of the carriage, were +driven 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 and +mysterious and altogether inspiring fashion of things. Mrs. Hayden +represented the outposts in the days of Richardson and Davenport--had +Honora but known it. This great house was all so different from anything +she (and many others in the city) had ever seen. And she stood gazing +into the drawing room, with its curtains and decorously drawn shades, in +a 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 things +gave her a sort of pain--when she did not yet know it herself? There was +the massive stairway, for instance, which they ascended, softly lighted +by a great leaded window of stained glass on the first landing; and the +spacious bedrooms with their shining brass beds and lace spreads (another +innovation which Honora resolved to adopt when she married); and at last, +far above all, its deep-set windows looking out above the trees towards +the park a mile to the westward, the ballroom,--the ballroom, with its +mirrors and high chandeliers, and chairs of gilt and blue set against the +walls, all of which made no impression whatever upon George and Mary and +Edith, but gave Honora a thrill. No wonder that she learned to dance +quickly under such an inspiration! + +And how pretty Mrs. Hayden looked as she came forward to greet them and +kissed Honora! She had been Virginia Grey, and scarce had had a gown to +her back when she had married the elderly Duncan Hayden, who had built +her this house and presented her with a checkbook,--a check-book which +Virginia 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 the +young men in Mrs. Hayden's train (and all young men were) who played at +Harvard or Yale or Princeton; those days were too care-free to have +endured. + +"Aunt Mary," asked Honora, when they were home again in the lamplight of +the little sitting-room, "why was it that Mr. Meeker was so polite to +Cousin 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 in +Mr. Meeker's eyes." + +"If I were a man," cried Honora, fiercely, "I should never rest until I +had made enough money to make Mr. Meeker wriggle." + +"Honora, come here," said her aunt, gazing in troubled surprise at the +tense little figure by the mantel. "I don't know what could have put such +things into your head, my child. Money isn't everything. In times of real +trouble it cannot save one." + +"But it can save one from humiliation!" exclaimed Honora, unexpectedly. +Another sign of a peculiar precociousness, at fourteen, with which Aunt +Mary was finding herself unable to cope. "I would rather be killed than +humiliated by Mr. Meeker." + +Whereupon she flew out of the room and upstairs, where old Catherine, in +dismay, 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 unswerving +and undemonstrative devotion. Her words of comfort were as few as her +silent 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, and +perplexed Cousin Eleanor. Mr. Meeker's cringing soul responded, and in a +month Honora was the leading spirit of the class, led the marches, and +was pointed out by the little dancing master as all that a lady should be +in deportment and bearing. + +This treatment, which succeeded so well in Mr. Meeker's case, Honora had +previously applied to others of his sex. Like most people with a future, +she began young. Of late, for instance, Mr. George Hanbury had shown a +tendency to regard her as his personal property; for George had a +high-handed way with him,--boys being an enigma to his mother. Even in +those days he had a bullet head and a red face and square shoulders, and +was rather undersized for his age--which was Honora's. + +Needless to say, George did not approve of the dancing class; and let it +be known, both by words and deeds, that he was there under protest. Nor +did he regard with favour Honora's triumphal progress, but sat in a +corner with several congenial spirits whose feelings ranged from scorn to +despair, commenting in loud whispers upon those of his sex to whom the +terpsichorean art came more naturally. Upon one Algernon Cartwright, for +example, whose striking likeness to the Van Dyck portrait of a young king +had been more than once commented upon by his elders, and whose velveteen +suits enhanced the resemblance. Algernon, by the way, was the favourite +male pupil of Mr. Meeker; and, on occasions, Algernon and Honora were +called upon to give exhibitions for the others, the sight of which filled +George with contemptuous rage. Algernon danced altogether too much with +Honora,--so George informed his cousin. + +The simple result of George's protests was to make Honora dance with +Algernon the more, evincing, even at this period of her career, a +commendable determination to resent dictation. George should have lived +in the Middle Ages, when the spirit of modern American womanhood was as +yet unborn. Once he contrived, by main force, to drag her out into the +hall. + +"George," she said, "perhaps, if you'd let me alone perhaps I'd like you +better." + +"Perhaps," he retorted fiercely, "if you wouldn't make a fool of yourself +with 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 he +heard Mrs. Hayden's voice. + +"Unless I am tremendously mistaken, my dear," that lady was remarking to +Mrs. Dwyer, whose daughter Emily's future millions were powerless to +compel youths of fourteen to dance with her, although she is now happily +married, "unless I am mistaken, Honora will have a career. The child will +be 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 for +it," 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 his +debts," continued Mrs. Dwyer, "although his uncle, Eleanor Hanbury's +father, cancelled what Randolph had had from him in his will. It was +twenty-five thousand dollars. James Hanbury, you remember, had him +appointed consul at Nice. Randolph Leffingwell gave the impression of +conferring a favour when he borrowed money. I cannot understand why he +married that penniless and empty-headed beauty." + +"Perhaps," said Mrs. Hayden, "it was because of his ability to borrow +money 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, but +I tremble for her. She is utterly incapable of managing that child. If +Honora is a complicated mechanism now, what will she be at twenty? She +has elements in her which poor Mary never dreamed of. I overheard her +with 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 I +dressed the other afternoon. Mrs. Leffingwell had sent her with a note +about that French governess. And, by the way, she speaks French as though +she had lived in Paris." + +Little Mrs. Dwyer raised her hands in protest. + +"It doesn't seem natural, somehow. It doesn't seem exactly--moral, my +dear." + +"Nonsense," said Mrs. Hayden. "Mrs. Leffingwell is only giving the child +the 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 blame +Mary Leffingwell. She thinks she is doing her duty, but it has always +seemed to me that Honora was one of those children who would better have +been brought up on bread and butter and jam." + +"Honora would only have eaten the jam," said Mrs. Hayden. "But I love +her." + +"I, too, am fond of the child, but I tremble for her. I am afraid she has +that terrible thing which is called temperament." + +George Hanbury made a second heroic rush, and dragged Honora out once +more. + +"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 a +warmth 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 Hanbury +and Algernon Cartwright and other young gentlemen were at the seashore +learning to sail boats and to play tennis, Peter Erwin came to his own. +Nearly every evening after dinner, while the light was still lingering +under the shade trees of the street, and Aunt Mary still placidly sewing +in the wicker chair on the lawn, and Uncle Tom making the tour of flowers +with 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 evenings +would have been even less bearable than they were. To sit indoors with a +light and read in a St. Louis midsummer was not to be thought of. Peter +played backgammon with her on the front steps, and later on--chess. +Sometimes they went for a walk as far as Grand Avenue. And sometimes when +Honora 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 a +Coliseum? The very name, Uhrig's Cave, sent a shiver of delight down +one's spine, and many were the conjectures one made as to what might be +enclosed in that half a block of impassible brick wall, over which the +great trees stretched their branches. Honora, from comparative infancy, +had her own theory, which so possessed the mind of Edith Hanbury that she +would not look at the wall when they passed in the carriage. It was a +still and sombre place by day; and sometimes, if you listened, you could +hear 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 wooden +gates. + +At night, in the warm season, when well brought up children were at home +or 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 to +know these mysteries, and the Ali Baba theory a thing of the past. Other +theories had replaced it. Nevertheless she clung tightly to Peter's arm +as they walked down Locust Street and came in sight of the wall. Above +it, and under the big trees, shone a thousand glittering lights: there +was a crowd at the gate, and instead of saying, "Open, Sesame," Peter +slipped 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 was +not 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 eye +shine and one's heart beat. Under the trees were hundreds of tables +surrounded by hovering ministering angels in white, and if you were +German, they brought you beer; if American, ice-cream. Beyond the tables +was a stage, with footlights already set and orchestra tuning up, and a +curtain on which was represented a gentleman making decorous love to a +lady 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 neighbouring +tables turned more than once to smile at her that evening. And Peter +turned more than once and smiled too. But Honora did not consider Peter. +He was merely Providence in one of many disguises, and Providence is +accepted by his beneficiaries as a matter of fact. + +The rapture of a young lady of temperament is a difficult thing to +picture. The bird may feel it as he soars, on a bright August morning, +high above amber cliffs jutting out into indigo seas; the novelist may +feel it when the four walls of his room magically disappear and the +profound secrets of the universe are on the point of revealing +themselves. Honora gazed, and listened, and lost herself. She was no +longer in Uhrig's Cave, but in the great world, her soul a-quiver with +harmonies. + +"Pinafore," although a comic opera, held something tragic for Honora, and +opened 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 his +pleasure; he liked the music, and he enjoyed the delight of Honora. + +What is Peter? Let us cease looking at him through Honora's eyes and +taking him like daily bread, to be eaten and not thought about. From one +point of view, he is twenty-nine and elderly, with a sense of humour +unsuspected by young persons of temperament. Strive as we will, we have +only been able to see him in his role of Providence, or of the piper. Has +he no existence, no purpose in life outside of that perpetual gentleman +in 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 a +while, as he found a way for them through the crowd, Peter glanced down +at her, and something like a smile tugged at the corners of a decidedly +masculine mouth, and lit up his eyes. Suddenly, at Locust Street, under +the lamp, she stopped and surveyed him. She saw a very real, very human +individual, clad in a dark nondescript suit of clothes which had been +bought ready-made, and plainly without the bestowal of much thought, on +Fifth Street. The fact that they were a comparative fit was in itself a +tribute to the enterprise of the Excelsior Clothing Company, for Honora's +observation 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 too +deep-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 which +had always stood on Catherine's bureau. But to-night, by grace of some +added power of vision, she saw him with new and critical eyes. She was +surprised to discover that he was possessed of a quality with which she +had never associated him--youth. Not to put it too strongly--comparative +youth. + +"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's +horrid 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 me +a 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 the +wild 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's +a 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 was +somewhere near the shade of the jungle." + +Honora laughed in spite of this apparent refutation of her theory of his +apparel, and shook her head. + +"Do be serious, Peter. You'd make much more of an impression on people if +you wore clothes that had--well, a little more distinction." + +"What's the use of making an impression if you can't follow it up?" he +said. + +"You can," she declared. "I never thought of it until to-night, but you +must have a great deal in you to have risen all the way from an errand +boy 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 to +dress--like Mr. Rossiter?" + +The picture evoked of Peter arrayed like Mr. Harland Rossiter, who had +sent flowers to two generations and was preparing to send more to a +third, was irresistible. Every city, hamlet, and village has its Harland +Rossiter. He need not be explained. But Honora soon became grave again. + +"No, but you ought to dress as though you were somebody, and different +from 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 not +wanting to be. If I were a man, I wouldn't stay here a day longer than I +had to." + +Peter was silent as they went in at the gate and opened the door, for on +this festive occasion they were provided with a latchkey. He turned up +the light in the hall to behold a transformation quite as wonderful as +any contained in the "Arabian Nights" or Keightley's "Fairy Mythology." +This was not the Honora with whom he had left the house scarce three +hours before! The cambric dress, to be sure, was still no longer than the +tops of her ankles and the hair still hung in a heavy braid down her +back. These were positively all that remained of the original Honora, and +the change had occurred in the incredibly brief space required for the +production of the opera "Pinafore." This Honora was a woman in a strange +and disturbing state of exaltation, whose eyes beheld a vision. And +Peter, although he had been the subject of her conversation, well knew +that he was not included in the vision. He smiled a little as he looked +at her. It is becoming apparent that he is one of those unfortunate +unimaginative 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 for +hours, 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 me +then." + +"I shan't feel like it then," she said in a tone that implied his +opportunity was now or never. But seeing him still obdurate, with +startling suddenness she flung her arms mound his neck--a method which at +times had succeeded marvellously--and pleaded coaxingly: "Only a quarter +of an hour, Peter. I've got so many things to say, and I know I shall +forget 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 a +brusque masculine creature which she did not recognize. With a movement +that was almost rough he released himself and fled, calling back a "good +night" to her out of the darkness. He did not even wait to assist her in +the process of locking up. Honora, profoundly puzzled, stood for a while +in the doorway gazing out into the night. When at length she turned, she +had forgotten him entirely. + +It was true that she did not sleep for hours, and on awaking the next +morning another phenomenon awaited her. The "little house under the hill" +was immeasurably shrunken. Poor Aunt Mary, who did not understand that a +performance of "Pinafore" could give birth to the unfulfilled longings +which result in the creation of high things, spoke to Uncle Tom a week +later concerning an astonishing and apparently abnormal access of +industry. + +"She's been reading all day long, Tom, or else shut up in her room, where +Catherine tells me she is writing. I'm afraid Eleanor Hanbury is right +when she says I don't understand the child. And yet she is the same to me +as though she were my own." + +It was true that Honora was writing, and that the door was shut, and that +she did not feel the heat. In one of the bookcases she had chanced upon +that immortal biography of Dr. Johnson, and upon the letters of another +prodigy of her own sex, Madame d'Arblay, whose romantic debut as an +authoress was inspiration in itself. Honora actually quivered when she +read of Dr. Johnson's first conversation with Miss Burney. To write a +book of the existence of which even one's own family did not know, to +publish it under a nom de plume, and to awake one day to fetes and fame +would be indeed to live! + +Unfortunately Honora's novel no longer exists, or the world might have +discovered a second Evelina. A regard for truth compels the statement +that it was never finished. But what rapture while the fever lasted! +Merely to take up the pen was to pass magically through marble portals +into the great world itself. + +The Sir Charles Grandison of this novel was, needless to say, not Peter +Erwin. He was none other than Mr. Randolph Leffingwell, under a very thin +disguise. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +IN WHICH PROVIDENCE BEEPS FAITH + +Two more years have gone by, limping in the summer and flying in the +winter, two more years of conquests. For our heroine appears to be one of +the daughters of Helen, born to make trouble for warriors and others +--and even for innocent bystanders like Peter Erwin. Peter was debarred +from entering those brilliant lists in which apparel played so great a +part. George Hanbury, Guy Rossiter, Algernon Cartwright, Eliphalet Hopper +Dwyer--familiarly known as "Hoppy"--and other young gentlemen whose names +are now but memories, each had his brief day of triumph. Arrayed like +Solomon in wonderful clothes from the mysterious and luxurious East, they +returned at Christmas-tide and Easter from college to break lances over +Honora. Let us say it boldly--she was like that: she had the world-old +knack of sowing discord and despair in the souls of young men. She +was--as those who had known that fascinating gentleman were not slow to +remark--Randolph Leffingwell over again. + +During the festival seasons, Uncle Tom averred, they wore out the latch +on the front gate. If their families possessed horses to spare, they took +Honora driving in Forest Park; they escorted her to those anomalous +dances peculiar to their innocent age, which are neither children's +parties nor full-fledged balls; their presents, while of no intrinsic +value--as one young gentleman said in a presentation speech--had an +enormous, if shy, significance. + +"What a beautiful ring you are wearing, Honora," Uncle Tom remarked slyly +one 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 exactly +insertable in a ten-cent piece from which everything had been removed but +the milling: removed with infinite loving patience by Mr. Rossiter, and +at the expense of much history and philosophy and other less important +things, in his college bedroom at New Haven. Honora wore it for a whole +week; a triumph indeed for Mr. Rossiter; when it was placed in a box in +Honora's bedroom, which contained other gifts--not all from him--and many +letters, in the writing of which learning had likewise suffered. The +immediate cause of the putting away of this ring was said to be the +renowned Clinton Howe, who was on the Harvard football eleven, and who +visited Mr. George Hanbury that Easter. Fortunate indeed the tailor who +was called upon to practise his art on an Adonis like Mr. Howe, and it +was remarked that he scarcely left Honora's side at the garden party and +dance which Mrs. Dwyer gave in honour of the returning heroes, on the +Monday of Easter week. + +This festival, on which we should like to linger, but cannot, took place +at the new Dwyer residence. For six months the Victorian mansion opposite +Uncle Tom's house had been sightless, with blue blinds drawn down inside +the plate glass windows. And the yellow stone itself was not so yellow as +it once had been, but had now the appearance of soiled manilla wrapping +paper, with black streaks here and there where the soot had run. The new +Dwyer house was of grey stone, Georgian and palatial, with a +picture-gallery twice the size of the old one; a magnificent and fitting +pioneer in a new city of palaces. + +Westward the star of Empire--away from the smoke. The Dwyer mansion, with +its lawns and gardens and heavily balustraded terrace, faced the park +that stretched away like a private estate to the south and west. That +same park with its huge trees and black forests that was Ultima Thule in +Honora's childhood; in the open places there had been real farms and +hayricks which she used to slide down with Peter while Uncle Tom looked +for wild flowers in the fields. It had been separated from the city in +those days by an endless country road, like a Via Claudia stretching +towards mysterious Germanian forests, and it was deemed a feat for Peter +to ride thither on his big-wheeled bicycle. Forest Park was the country, +and all that the country represented in Honora's childhood. For Uncle Tom +on a summer's day to hire a surrey at Braintree's Livery Stable and drive +thither was like--to what shall that bliss be compared in these days when +we go to Europe with indifference? + +And now Lindell Road--the Via Claudia of long, ago--had become Lindell +Boulevard, with granitoid sidewalks. And the dreary fields through which +it 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 you +could take an electric to within a block of the imposing grille that +surrounded the Dwyer grounds. Westward the star! + +Fading fast was the glory of that bright new district on top of the +second hill from the river where Uncle Tom was a pioneer. Soot had killed +the pear trees, the apricots behind the lattice fence had withered away; +asphalt and soot were slowly sapping the vitality of the maples on the +sidewalk; and sometimes Uncle Tom's roses looked as though they might +advantageously be given a coat of paint, like those in Alice in +Wonderland. Honora should have lived in the Dwyers' mansion-people who +are capable of judging said so. People who saw her at the garden party +said she had the air of belonging in such surroundings much more than +Emily, whom even budding womanhood had not made beautiful. And Eliphalet +Hopper Dwyer, if his actions meant anything, would have welcomed her to +that house, or built her another twice as fine, had she deigned to give +him the least encouragement. + +Cinderella! This was what she facetiously called herself one July morning +of that summer she was eighteen. + +Cinderella in more senses than one, for never had the city seemed more +dirty or more deserted, or indeed, more stifling. Winter and its +festivities were a dream laid away in moth balls. Surely Cinderella's +life had held no greater contrasts! To this day the odour of matting +brings back to Honora the sense of closed shutters; of a stifling south +wind stirring their slats at noonday; the vision of Aunt Mary, cool and +placid in a cambric sacque, sewing by the window in the upper hall, and +the sound of fruit venders crying in the street, or of ragmen in the +alley--"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 houses +in order that he might not be forgotten during the night, he slowly +departed. If Honora took her book under the maple tree in the yard, she +was confronted with that hideous wooden sign "To Let" on the Dwyer's iron +fence opposite, and the grass behind it was unkempt and overgrown with +weeds. Aunt Mary took an unceasing and (to Honora's mind) morbid interest +in the future of that house. + +"I suppose it will be a boarding-house," she would say, "it's much too +large for poor people to rent, and only poor people are coming into this +district now." + +"Oh, Aunt Mary!" + +"Well, my dear, why should we complain? We are poor, and it is +appropriate that we should live among the poor. Sometimes I think it is a +pity that you should have been thrown all your life with rich people, my +child. I am afraid it has made you discontented. It is no disgrace to be +poor. We ought to be thankful that we have everything we need." + +Honora put down her sewing. For she had learned to sew--Aunt Mary had +insisted 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 of +the 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 the +contradiction of this hope. She shook her head vigorously. + +"We shall always be, my child. Your Uncle Tom is getting old, and he has +always been too honest to make a great deal of money. And besides," she +added, "he has not that kind of ability." + +Uncle Tom might be getting old, but he seemed to Honora to be of the same +age as in her childhood. Some people never grow old, and Uncle Tom was +one of these. Fifteen years before he had been promoted to be the cashier +of the Prairie Bank, and he was the cashier to-day. He had the same quiet +smile, the same quiet humour, the same calm acceptance of life. He seemed +to bear no grudge even against that ever advancing enemy, the soot, which +made it increasingly difficult for him to raise his flowers. Those which +would still grow he washed tenderly night and morning with his +watering-pot. The greatest wonders are not at the ends of the earth, but +near us. It was to take many years for our heroine to realize this. + +Strong faith alone could have withstood the continued contact with such a +determined fatalism as Aunt Mary's, and yet it is interesting to note +that Honora's belief in her providence never wavered. A prince was to +come who was to bear her away from the ragmen and the boarding-houses and +the soot: and incidentally and in spite of herself, Aunt Mary was to come +too, and Uncle Tom. And sometimes when she sat reading of an evening +under the maple, her book would fall to her lap and the advent of this +personage 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 in +disguise. Peter who, despite her efforts to teach him distinction in +dress, insisted upon wearing the same kind of clothes. A mild kind of +providence, Peter, whose modest functions were not unlike those of the +third horse which used to be hitched on to the street car at the foot of +the Seventeenth-Street hill: it was Peter's task to help pull Honora +through the interminable summers. Uhrig's Cave was an old story now: +mysteries were no longer to be expected in St. Louis. There was a great +panorama--or something to that effect--in the wilderness at the end of +one of the new electric lines, where they sometimes went to behold the +White Squadron of the new United States Navy engaged in battle with mimic +forts on a mimic sea, on the very site where the country place of Madame +Clement had been. The mimic sea, surrounded by wooden stands filled with +common people eating peanuts and popcorn, was none other than Madame +Clement's pond, which Honora remembered as a spot of enchantment. And +they went out in the open cars with these same people, who stared at +Honora as though she had got in by mistake, but always politely gave her +a seat. And Peter thanked them. Sometimes he fell into conversations with +them, and it was noticeable that they nearly always shook hands with him +at parting. Honora did not approve of this familiarity. + +"But they may be clients some day," he argued--a frivolous answer to +which she never deigned to reply. + +Just as one used to take for granted that third horse which pulled the +car uphill, so Peter was taken for granted. He might have been on the +highroad to a renown like that of Chief Justice Marshall, and Honora had +been none the wiser. + +"Well, Peter," said Uncle Tom at dinner one evening of that memorable +summer, when Aunt Mary was helping the blackberries, and incidentally +deploring that she did not live in the country, because of the cream one +got there, "I saw Judge Brice in the bank to-day, and he tells me you +covered 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's +self with glory. It was not, at any rate, her idea of glory. What were +lawyers for, if not to win suits? And Peter was a lawyer. + +"In five years," said Uncle Tom, "the firm will be 'Brice and Erwin'. You +mark 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 waste +of 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 Honora +was a child. But now--she may not wish to marry Peter. And Peter may not +wish to marry her." + +Even Peter joined in the laughter at this literal and characteristic +statement of the case. + +"It's more than likely," said Honora, wickedly. "He hasn't kissed me for +two 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 cross +the street, "I wish the child would marry him. Not now, of course," she +added hastily,--a little frightened by her own admission, "but later. +Sometimes I worry over her future. She needs a strong and sensible man. I +don't understand Honora. I never did. I always told you so. Sometimes I +think she may be capable of doing something foolish like--like +Randolph." + +Uncle Tom patted his wife on the shoulder. + +"Don't borrow trouble, Mary," he said, smiling a little. "The child is +only full of spirits. But she has a good heart. It is only human that she +should 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," he +declared. + +"And I have given her," she continued, "a taste for dress." + +"I think, my dear," said her husband, "that there were others who +contributed to that." + +"It was my own vanity. I should have combated the tendency in her," said +Aunt 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 were +speeding westward. They had a seat to themselves, the very first one on +the "grip"--that survival of the days of cable cars. Honora's eyes +brightened as she held on to her hat, and the stray wisps of hair about +her neck stirred in the breeze. + +"Oh, I wish we would never stop, until we came to the Pacific Ocean!" she +exclaimed. + +"Would you be content to stop then?" he asked. He had a trick of looking +downward with a quizzical expression in his dark grey eyes. + +"No," said Honora. "I should want to go on and see everything in the +world worth seeing. Sometimes I feel positively as though I should die if +I 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 New +York--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 something +happens to us." + +"What would you like to happen?" he asked, curiously. And there was a +note 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 rut +and be something in the world. It's dreadful to feel that one has power +and not be able to use it." + +The car stopped at the terminal. Thanks to the early hour of Aunt Mary's +dinner, the western sky was still aglow with the sunset over the forests +as they walked past the closed grille of the Dwyer mansion into the park. +Children rolled on the grass, while mothers and fathers, tired out from +the heat and labour of a city day, sat on the benches. Peter stooped down +and lifted a small boy, painfully thin, who had fallen, weeping, on the +gravel walk. He took his handkerchief and wiped the scratch on the +child's forehead. + +"There, there!" he said, smiling, "it's all right now. We must expect a +few 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 bother +with him," he said gratefully. "It's that thin he is with the heat, I +take him out for a bit of country air." + +"Why, Tim, it's you, is it?" said Peter. "He's the janitor of our +building down town," he explained to Honora, who had remained a silent +witness to this simple scene. She had been, in spite of herself, +impressed by it, and by the mingled respect and affection in the +janitor's manner towards Peter. It was so with every one to whom he +spoke. They walked on in silence for a few moments, into a path leading +to 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 to +be 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 him +as having any desires whatever. + +"I want a house like Mr. Dwyer's," he declared, pointing at the distant +imposing roof line against the fading eastern sky. + +Honora laughed. The idea of Peter wishing such a house was indeed +ridiculous. 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 of +themselves 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 in +his pockets. He looked very solemn, but she knew he was smiling inwardly. + +"Why--because I can't," she said, and hesitated. The question had forced +her to think about Peter. "I can't imagine you living all alone in all +that 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 like +that, 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 knowledge +of eighteen. + +"I'm waiting for you, Honora," he announced. + +"You know I love you, Peter,"--so she tempered her reply, for Honora's +feelings were tender. What man, even Peter, would not have married her if +he could? Of course he was in earnest, despite his bantering tone, "but I +never could--marry you." + +"Not even if I were to offer you a house like Mr. Dwyer's?" he said. A +remark which betrayed--although not to her--his knowledge of certain +earthly 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 of +repressed masculine force, of reserve power, which she had never before +felt about Peter Erwin, invaded her; and she was seized with a strange +uneasiness. Ridiculous was the thought (which she lost no time in +rejecting) that pointed out the true road to happiness in marrying such a +man as he. In the gathering darkness she slipped her hand through his +arm. + +"I wish I could marry you, Peter," she said. + +He was fain to take what comfort he could from this expression of +good-will. If he was not the Prince Charming of her dreams, she would +have liked him to be. A little reflection on his part ought to have shown +him 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 not +concerned with them. + + ............................ + +If we listen to the still, small voice of realism, intense longing is +always followed by disappointment. Nothing should have happened that +summer, and Providence should not have come disguised as the postman. It +was a sultry day in early September-which is to say that it was +comparatively cool--a blue day, with occasional great drops of rain +spattering on the brick walk. And Honora was reclining on the hall sofa, +reading about Mr. Ibbetson and his duchess, when she perceived the +postman's grey uniform and smiling face on the far side of the screen +door. He greeted her cordially, and gave her a single letter for Aunt +Mary, 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 and +glanced at Honora, who was deep in her book once more. And in Honora's +brain, 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 to +Ibbetson. Was she not, too, a prisoner. And how often, during the summer +days and nights, had she listened to the chimes of the Pilgrim Church +near by? + + "One, two, three, four! + One, two, three, four!" + +After Uncle Tom had watered his flowers that evening, Aunt Mary followed +him upstairs and locked the door of their room behind her. Silently she +put 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 is +right." + +"Well, Mary, we've had her for seventeen years. We ought to be willing to +spare her for--how many months?" + +"Nine," said Aunt Mary, promptly. She had counted them. "And Eleanor says +she will be home for two weeks at Christmas. Seventeen years! It seems +only yesterday when we brought her home, Tom. It was just about this time +of day, and she was asleep in your arms, and Bridget opened the door for +us." Aunt Mary looked out of the window. "And do you remember how she +used 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 at +Christmas. Nine months in eighteen years." + +"I suppose we ought to be very thankful," said Aunt Mary. "But, Tom, the +time is coming soon--" + +"Tut tut," exclaimed Uncle Tom. He turned, and his eyes beheld a work of +art. 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 with +much ceremony on an anniversary morning. He pretended not to notice it, +but Aunt Mary's eyes were too quick. She seized a photograph on her +bureau, 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 the +sight of Catherine standing respectfully in the hall, and of Honora, in +the red sash, making the courtesy the old woman had taught her. + +Honora recalled afterwards that Uncle Tom joked even more than usual that +evening at dinner. But it was Aunt Mary who asked her, at length, how she +would like to go to boarding-school. Such was the matter-of-fact manner +in 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 did +not stop to reflect that it was the rarest of occurrences for Aunt Mary +to spill the coffee. + +"Your Cousin Eleanor has invited you to go this winter with Edith and +Mary to Sutcliffe." + +Sutcliffe! No need to tell Honora what Sutcliffe was--her cousins had +talked of little else during the past winter; and shown, if the truth be +told, just a little commiseration for Honora. Sutcliffe was not only a +famous girls' school, Sutcliffe was the world--that world which, since +her earliest remembrances, she had been longing to see and know. In a +desperate attempt to realize what had happened to her, she found herself +staring hard at the open china closet, at Aunt Mary's best gold dinner +set 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 the +rare occasions Aunt Mary entertained, the little dining room was +transformed by it and the Leffingwell silver into a glorified and +altogether 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 that +school before Cousin Eleanor's letter came, "Miss Turner insists upon +hard 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 she +always had, but tears were shining in her eyes. Young men and chocolate +cake! What were these privations compared to that magic word Change? +Suddenly she rose, and flung her arms about Uncle Tom's neck and kissed +his 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 it +won't be for long--will it? Only until next spring." + +"Until next summer, I believe," replied Aunt Mary, gently; "June is a +summer month-isn't it, Tom?" + +"It will be a summer month without question next year," answered Uncle +Tom, enigmatically. + +It has been remarked that that day was sultry, and a fine rain was now +washing 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, life +proceeded as on any other of a thousand rainy nights. The lamps were +lighted 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, if +you tried until to-morrow morning, you never could guess what has +happened." + +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--to +boarding-school. To Sutcliffe, on the Hudson, with Edith and Mary. Aren't +you 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 the +parlour, 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 come +back 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 of +contrition. She could not remember the time when she had been away from +Peter, 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 and +Uncle Tom and Catherine, and who somehow embodied them all. Peter, the +eternally dependable. + +She found it natural that the light should be temporarily removed from +his firmament while she should be at boarding-school, and yet in the +tenderness of her heart she pitied him. She put her hands impulsively +upon his shoulders as he stood looking at her with that queer expression +which he believed to be a smile. + +"Peter, you dear old thing, indeed I shall miss you! I don't know what I +shall do without you, and I'll write to you every single week." + +Gently he disengaged her arms. They were standing under that which, for +courtesy's sake, had always been called the chandelier. It was in the +centre of the parlour, and Uncle Tom always covered it with holly and +mistletoe at Christmas. + +"Why do you say I'll never come back?" asked Honora. "Of course I shall +come back, and live here all the rest of my life." + +Peter shook his head slowly. He had recovered something of his customary +quizzical manner. + +"The East is a strange country," he said. "The first thing we know you'll +be marrying one of those people we read about, with more millions than +there 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, I +shan't see any but girls at Sutcliffe. I could only see you for a few +minutes once a week if you were there. And in the second place, it isn't +exactly--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 they +were different from the people we know here. Comparisons, as Shakespeare +said, are odorous." + +"Honora," he declared, still shaking his head, "you're a fraud, but I +can'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 the +puffing of the trains in the cinder-covered valley to the southward, but +the 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 of +the days that followed. No sooner was Uncle Tom out of the house in the +morning than Anne Rory marched into the sitting-room and took command, +and turned it, into a dressmaking establishment. Anne Rory, who deserves +more 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 Mary +did,--she would tell you of her own accord who gave their servants enough +to eat, and who didn't. Anne Rory was a sort of inquisition all by +herself, and would have made a valuable chief of police. The reputations +of certain elderly gentlemen of wealth might have remained to this day +intact had it not been for her; she had a heaven-sent knack of +discovering peccadilloes. Anne Rory knew the gentlemen by sight, and the +gentlemen did not know Anne Rory. Uncle Tom she held to be somewhere in +the calendar of the saints. + +There is not time, alas, to linger over Anne Rory or the new histories +which she whispered to Aunt Mary when Honora was out of the room. At last +the eventful day of departure arrived. Honora's new trunk--her +first--was packed by Aunt Mary's own hands, the dainty clothes and the +dresses folded in tissue paper, while old Catherine stood sniffing by. +After dinner--sign of a great occasion--a carriage came from Braintree's +Livery Stable, and Uncle Tom held the horses while the driver carried out +the trunk and strapped it on. Catherine, Mary Ann, and Bridget, all +weeping, were kissed good-by, and off they went through the dusk to the +station. Not the old Union Depot, with its wooden sheds, where Honora had +gone so often to see the Hanburys off, that grimy gateway to the fairer +regions of the earth. This new station, of brick and stone and glass and +tiles, would hold an army corps with ease. And when they alighted at the +carriage entrance, a tall figure came forward out of the shadow. It was +Peter, and he had a package under his arm. Peter checked Honora's trunk, +and Peter had got the permission--through Judge Brice--which enabled them +all to pass through the grille and down the long walk beside which the +train was standing. + +They entered that hitherto mysterious conveyance, a sleeping-car, and +spoke to old Mrs. Stanley, who was going East to see her married +daughter, and who had gladly agreed to take charge of Honora. Afterwards +they stood on the platform, but in spite of the valiant efforts of Uncle +Tom and Peter, conversation was a mockery. + +"Honora," said Aunt Mary, "don't forget that your trunk key is in the +little pocket on the left side of your bag." + +"No, Aunt Mary." + +"And your little New Testament at the bottom. And your lunch is arranged +in three packages. And don't forget to ask Cousin Eleanor about the +walking shoes, and to give her my note." + +Cries reverberated under the great glass dome, and trains pulled out with +deafening roars. Honora had a strange feeling, as of pressure from +within, that caused her to take deep breaths of the smoky air. She but +half heard what was being said to her: she wished that the train would +go, and at the same time she had a sudden, surprising, and fierce longing +to stay. She had been able to eat scarcely a mouthful of that festal +dinner which Bridget had spent the afternoon in preparing, comprised +wholly of forbidden dishes of her childhood, for which Bridget and Aunt +Mary were justly famed. Such is the irony of life. Visions of one of Aunt +Mary's rare lunch-parties and of a small girl peeping covetously through +a crack in the dining-room door, and of the gold china set, rose before +her. But she could not eat. + +"Bread and jam and tea at Miss Turner's," Uncle Tom had said, and she had +tried to smile at him. + +And now they were standing on the platform, and the train might start at +any moment. + +"I trust you won't get like the New Yorkers, Honora," said Aunt Mary. "Do +you remember how stiff they were, Tom?" She was still in the habit of +referring to that memorable trip when they had brought Honora home. "And +they say now that they hold their heads higher than ever." + +"That," said Uncle Tom, gravely, "is a local disease, and comes from +staring at the tall buildings." + +"Uncle Tom!" + +Peter presented the parcel under his arm. It was a box of candy, and very +heavy, on which much thought had been spent. + +"They are some of the things you like," he said, when he had returned +from 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 evident +relish, "right good doctah--Doctah Lov'ring." + +Even Aunt Mary laughed. + +"Peter," asked Honora, "can't you get Judge Brice to send you on to New +York this winter on law business? Then you could come up to Sutcliffe to +see me." + +"I'm afraid of Miss Turner," declared Peter. + +"Oh, she wouldn't mind you," exclaimed Honora. "I could say you were an +uncle. It would be almost true. And perhaps she would let you take me +down to New York for a matinee." + +"And how about my ready-made clothes?" he said, looking down at her. He +had never forgotten that. + +Honora laughed. + +"You don't seem a bit sorry that I'm going," she replied, a little +breathlessly. "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 and +frail she was! Somehow Honora had never realized it in all her life +before. + +"Good-by, darling, and remember to put on your thick clothes on the cool +days, and write when you get to New York." + +Then it was Uncle Tom's turn. He gave her his usual vigorous hug and +kiss. + +"It won't be long until Christmas," he whispered, and was gone, helping +Aunt 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't +think it would be so hard--" + +He held out his hand, but she ignored it. Before he realized what had +happened to him she had drawn his face to hers, kissed it, and was +pushing him off the train. Then she watched from the, platform the three +receding figures in the yellow smoky light until the car slipped out from +under the roof into the blackness of the night. Some faint, premonitory +divination 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 of +them, all three, as one, a human trinity in which her faith had never +been betrayed. She felt a warm moisture on her cheeks, and realized that +she was crying with the first real sorrow of her life. + +She was leaving them--for what? Honora did not know. There had been +nothing imperative in Cousin Eleanor's letter. She need not have gone if +she had not wished. Something within herself, she felt, was impelling +her. And it is curious to relate that, in her mind, going to school had +little or nothing to do with her journey. She had the feeling of faring +forth into the world, and she had known all along that it was destined +she should. What was the cause of this longing to break the fetters and +fly away? fetters of love, they seemed to her now--and were. And the +world which she had seen afar, filled with sunlit palaces, seemed very +dark 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 of +Peter'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 her +slightest desires and caprices. Marrons glaces, and Langtrys, and certain +chocolates which had received the stamp of her approval--and she could +not so much as eat one! The porter made the berths. And there had been a +time when she had asked nothing more of fate than to travel in a +sleeping-car! Far into the night she lay wide awake, dry-eyed, watching +the lamp-lit streets of the little towns they passed, or staring at the +cornfields and pastures in the darkness; thinking of the home she had +left, perhaps forever, and wondering whether they were sleeping there; +picturing them to-morrow at breakfast without her, and Uncle Tom leaving +for the bank, Aunt Mary going through the silent rooms alone, and dear +old Catherine haunting the little chamber where she had slept for +seventeen years--almost her lifetime. A hundred vivid scenes of her +childhood came back, and familiar objects oddly intruded themselves; the +red and green lambrequin on the parlour mantel--a present many years ago +from Cousin Eleanor; the what-not, with its funny curly legs, and the +bare spot near the lock on the door of the cake closet in the dining +room! + +Youth, however, has its recuperative powers. The next day the excitement +of 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 dining +car. The September dusk was made lurid by belching steel-furnaces that +reddened the heavens; and later, when she went to bed, sharp air and +towering contours told her of the mountains. Mountains which her +great-grandfather had crossed on horse back, with that very family silver +in his saddle-bags which shone on Aunt Mary's table. And then--she awoke +with the light shining in her face, and barely had time to dress before +the conductor was calling out "Jersey City." + +Once more the morning, and with it new and wonderful sensations that +dispelled her sorrows; the ferry, the olive-green river rolling in the +morning sun, alive with dodging, hurrying craft, each bent upon its +destination with an energy, relentlessness, and selfishness of purpose +that fascinated Honora. Each, with its shrill, protesting whistle, seemed +to say: "My business is the most important. Make way for me." And yet, +through them all, towering, stately, imperturbable, a great ocean steamer +glided slowly towards the bay, by very might and majesty holding her way +serene 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 the +pulse of the world's artery. That irksome sense of spectatorship seemed +to fly, and she was part and parcel now of the great, moving things, with +sure pinions with which to soar. Standing rapt upon the forward deck of +the ferry, she saw herself, not an atom, but one whose going and coming +was a thing of consequence. It seemed but a simple step to the deck of +that steamer when she, too, would be travelling to the other side of the +world, and the journey one of the small incidents of life. + +The ferry bumped into its slip, the windlasses sang loudly as they took +up the chains, the gates folded back, and Honora was forced with the +crowd along the bridge-like passage to the right. Suddenly she saw Cousin +Eleanor and the girls awaiting her. + +"Honora," said Edith, when the greetings were over and they were all four +in the carriage, which was making its way slowly across the dirty and +irregularly paved open space to a narrow street that opened between two +saloons, "Honora, you don't mean to say that Anne Rory made that street +dress? Mother, I believe it's better-looking than the one I got at +Bremer'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 from +the 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 colour +in 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 first +time by an ambitious young lady who had never been out of St. Louis! The +trimly appointed vehicles, the high-stepping horses, the glittering +shops, the well-dressed women and well-groomed men--all had an esprit de +corps which she found inspiring. On such a morning, and amidst such a +scene, she felt that there was no limit to the possibilities of life. + +Until this year, Cousin Eleanor had been a conservative in the matter of +hotels, when she had yielded to Edith's entreaties to go to one of the +"new ones." Hotels, indeed, that revolutionized transient existence. This +one, on the Avenue, had a giant in a long blue livery coat who opened +their carriage door, and a hall in yellow and black onyx, and maids and +valets. After breakfast, when Honora sat down to write to Aunt Mary, she +described the suite of rooms in which they lived,--the brass beds, the +electric night lamps, the mahogany French furniture, the heavy carpets, +and even the white-tiled bathroom. There was a marvellous arrangement in +the walls with which Edith was never tired of playing, a circular plate +covered with legends of every conceivable want, from a newspaper to a +needle and thread and a Scotch whiskey highball. + +At breakfast, more stimulants--of a mental nature, of course. Solomon in +all his glory had never broken eggs in such a dining room. It had onyx +pillars, too, and gilt furniture, and table after table of the whitest +napery stretched from one end of it to the other. The glass and silver +was all of a special pattern, and an obsequious waiter handed Honora a +menu in a silver frame, with a handle. One side of the menu was in +English, and the other in French. All around them were well-dressed, +well-fed, prosperous-looking people, talking and laughing in subdued +tones 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-deferred +inheritance. + +The mad excitement of that day in New York is a faint memory now, so much +has Honora lived since then. We descendants of rigid Puritans, of pioneer +tobacco-planters and frontiersmen, take naturally to a luxury such as the +world has never seen--as our right. We have abolished kings, in order +that as many of us as possible may abide in palaces. In one day Honora +forgot the seventeen years spent in the "little house under the hill," as +though these had never been. Cousin Eleanor, with a delightful sense of +wrong-doing, yielded to the temptation to adorn her; and the saleswomen, +who knew Mrs. Hanbury, made indiscreet-remarks. Such a figure and such a +face, and just enough of height! Two new gowns were ordered, to be tried +on at Sutcliffe, and as many hats, and an ulster, and heaven knows what +else. Memory fails. + +In the evening they went to a new comic opera, and it is the music of +that which brings back the day most vividly to Honora's mind. + +In the morning they took an early train to Sutcliffe Manors, on the +Hudson. It is an historic place. First of all, after leaving the station, +you climb through the little town clinging to the hillside; and Honora +was struck by the quaint houses and shops which had been places of barter +before the Revolution. The age of things appealed to her. It was a +brilliant day at the very end of September, the air sharp, and here and +there a creeper had been struck crimson. Beyond the town, on the slopes, +were other new sights to stimulate the imagination: country houses--not +merely houses in the country, but mansions--enticingly hidden among great +trees in a way to whet Honora's curiosity as she pictured to herself the +blissful quality of the life which their owners must lead. Long, curving +driveways led up to the houses from occasional lodges; and once, as +though to complete the impression, a young man and two women, superbly +mounted, came trotting out of one of these driveways, talking and +laughing gayly. Honora took a good look at the man. He was not handsome, +but had, in fact, a distinguished and haunting ugliness. The girls were +straight-featured and conventional to the last degree. + +Presently they came to the avenue of elms that led up to the long, low +buildings of the school. + +Little more will be necessary, in the brief account of Honora's life at +boarding-school, than to add an humble word of praise on the excellence +of Miss Turner's establishment. That lady, needless to say, did not +advertise in the magazines, or issue a prospectus. Parents were more or +less in the situation of the candidates who desired the honour and +privilege of whitewashing Tom Sawyer's fence. If you were a parent, and +were allowed to confide your daughter to Miss Turner, instead of +demanding a prospectus, you gave thanks to heaven, and spoke about it to +your friends. + +The life of the young ladies, of course, was regulated on the strictest +principles. Early rising, prayers, breakfast, studies; the daily walk, +rain or shine, under the watchful convoy of Miss Hood, the girls in +columns of twos; tennis on the school court, or skating on the school +pond. Cotton Mather himself could not have disapproved of the Sundays, +nor of the discourse of the elderly Doctor Moale (which you heard if you +were not a Presbyterian), although the reverend gentleman was distinctly +Anglican in appearance and manners. Sometimes Honora felt devout, and +would follow the service with the utmost attention. Her religion came in +waves. On the Sundays when the heathen prevailed she studied the +congregation, grew to distinguish the local country families; and, if the +truth must be told, watched for several Sundays for that ugly yet +handsome 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 of +Miss Turner's school could not very well have been mentioned in it. The +English language, it is to be feared, is not quite flexible enough to +mention this secret with delicacy. Did Honora know it? Who can say? +Self-respecting young ladies do not talk about such things, and Honora +was 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 window +of an express train. There was a Glee Club: there were dances, and +private theatricals in Mrs. Dwyer's new house, in which it was imperative +that Honora should take part. There was no such thing as getting up for +breakfast, and once she did not see Uncle Tom for two whole days. He +asked her where she was staying. It was the first Christmas she +remembered spending without Peter. His present appeared, but perhaps it +was fortunate, on the whole, that he was in Texas, trying a case. It +seemed 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 she +had Edith and Mary for company, and George, a dignified and responsible +sophomore at Harvard. + +Owing to the sudden withdrawal from school of little Louise Simpson, the +Cincinnati girl who had shared her room during the first term, Honora had +a 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 a +negative colour, and she wore it in defiance of all prevailing modes. If +you looked very hard at Susan (which few people ever did), you saw that +she had remarkable blue eyes: they were the eyes of a saint. She was +neither tall nor short, and her complexion was not all that it might have +been. In brief, Susan was one of those girls who go through a whole term +at boarding--school without any particular notice from the more brilliant +Honoras and Ethel Wings. + +In some respects, Susan was an ideal room-mate. She read the Bible every +night and morning, and she wrote many letters home. Her ruling passion, +next to religion, was order, and she took it upon herself to arrange +Honora's bureau drawers. It is needless to say that Honora accepted these +ministrations and that she found Susan's admiration an entirely natural +sentiment. Susan was self-effacing, and she enjoyed listening to Honora's +views on all topics. + +Susan, like Peter, was taken for granted. She came from somewhere, and +after 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 are +entertaining an angel unawares. One evening, early in May, when she went +up to prepare for supper she found Susan sitting in the window reading a +letter, and on the floor beside her was a photograph. Honora picked it +up. It was the picture of a large country house with many chimneys, taken +across 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 last +week. 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 seemed +much more like home to me than our house in New York, and I love it +better 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 her +letter, 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 my +cousins." + +It was foolish, it was wrong. But for the life of her Honora could not +say she was going to spend the long hot summer in St. Louis. The thought +of it had haunted her for weeks: and sometimes, when the other girls were +discussing their plans, she had left them abruptly. And now she was aware +that Susan's blue eyes were fixed upon her, and that they had a strange +and penetrating quality she had never noticed before: a certain +tenderness, an understanding that made Honora redden and turn. + +"I wish," said Susan, slowly, "that you would come and stay awhile with +me. Your home is so far away, and I don't know when I shall see you +again." + +"Oh, Susan," she murmured, "it's awfully good of you, but I'm afraid--I +couldn't." + +She walked to the window, and stood looking out for a moment at the +budding trees. Her heart was beating faster, and she was strangely +uncomfortable. + +"I really don't expect to go to the sea, Susan," she said. "You see, my +aunt and uncle are all alone in St. Louis, and I ought to go back to +them. 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 there +when he died. And people said he had an unusually brilliant career before +him. 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 before +sleep came to her that night. She wondered what it would be like to visit +at a great country house such as Silverdale, what it would be like to +live in one. It seemed a strange and cruel piece of irony on the part of +the fates that Susan, instead of Honora, should have been chosen for such +a life: Susan, who would have been quite as happy spending her summers in +St. Louis, and taking excursions in the electric cars: Susan, who had +never experienced that dreadful, vacuum-like feeling, who had no +ambitious craving to be satisfied. Mingled with her flushes of affection +for Susan was a certain queer feeling of contempt, of which Honora was +ashamed. + +Nevertheless, in the days that followed, a certain metamorphosis seemed +to 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 of +Silverdale. And, if the naked truth must be told, it was due to +Silverdale that Susan owes the honour of her first mention in those +descriptive letters from Sutcliffe, which Aunt Mary has kept to this day. + +Four days later Susan had a letter from her mother containing an +astonishing discovery. There could be no mistake,--Mrs. Holt had brought +Honora 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 have +often heard mother tell about it, and how every one on the ship noticed +you, and how Hortense cried when your aunt and uncle took you away. And +to think we have been rooming together all these months and did not know +that we were really--old friends. + +"And Honora, mother says you must come to Silverdale to pay us a visit +when 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 me +your 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 it +was not until after she had posted it that she felt a sudden, sharp +regret as she thought of them in their loneliness. But the postponement +of her homecoming would only be for a fortnight at best. And she had seen +so little! + +In due time Aunt Mary's letter arrived. There was no mention of +loneliness in it, only of joy that Honora was to have the opportunity to +visit such a place as Silverdale. Aunt Mary, it seems, had seen pictures +of it long ago in a magazine of the book club, in an article concerning +one of Mrs. Holt's charities--a model home for indiscreet young women. At +the end of the year, Aunt Mary added, she had bought the number of the +magazine, because of her natural interest in Mrs. Holt on Honora's +account. Honora cried a little over that letter, but her determination to +go to Silverdale was unshaken. + +June came at last, and the end of school. The subject of Miss Turner's +annual talk was worldliness. Miss Turner saw signs, she regretted to say, +of a lowering in the ideals of American women: of a restlessness, of a +desire 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 of +Maillard's chocolates, which she had in her pocket. Woman's place, +continued Miss Turner, was the home, and she hoped they would all make +good wives. She had done her best to prepare them to be such. +Independence, they would find, was only relative: no one had it +completely. And she hoped that none of her scholars would ever descend to +that base competition to outdo one's neighbours, so characteristic of the +country to-day. + +The friends, and even the enemies, were kissed good-by, with pledges of +eternal friendship. Cousin Eleanor Hanbury came for Edith and Mary, and +hoped Honora would enjoy herself at Silverdale. Dear Cousin Eleanor! Her +heart was large, and her charity unpretentious. She slipped into Honora's +fingers, 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 she +stepped on the train for New York. + +"And I am going home soon, Cousin Eleanor," replied Honora, with a little +touch of homesickness in her voice. + +"I know, dear," said Mrs. Hanbury. But there was a peculiar, almost +wistful expression on her face as she kissed Honora again, as of one who +assents to a fiction in order to humour a child. + +As the train pulled out, Ethel Wing waved to her from the midst of a +group 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. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's A Modern Chronicle, Volume 1, by Winston Churchill + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MODERN CHRONICLE, VOLUME 1 *** + +***** This file should be named 5374.txt or 5374.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/5/3/7/5374/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + +Title: A Modern Chronicle, Volume 1. + +Author: Winston Churchill (USA author, not Sir Winston Churchill) + +Release Date: March, 2004 [EBook #5374] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on June 28, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MODERN CHRONICLE, V1, BY CHURCHILL *** + + + +This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + + + +[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the +file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an +entire meal of them. D.W.] + + + + + +A MODERN CHRONICLE + +By Winston Churchill + + + +CONTENTS + +BOOK I. + +Volume 1. +I. WHAT'S IN HEREDITY? +II. PERDITA RECALLED +III. CONCERNING PROVIDENCE +IV. OF TEMPERAMENT +V. IN WHICH PROVIDENCE BEEPS FAITH +VI. HONORA HAS A GLIMPSE OF THE WORLD + +Volume 2. +VII. THE OLYMPIAN ORDER +VIII. A CHAPTER OF CONQUESTS +IX. IN WHICH THE VICOMTE CONTINUES HIS STUDIES +X. IN WHICH HONORA WIDENS HER HORIZON +XI. WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN +XII. WHICH CONTAINS A SURPRISE FOR MRS. HOLT + + +BOOK II + +Volume 3. +I. SO LONG AS YE BOTH SHALL LIVE +II. "STAFFORD PARK" +III. THE GREAT UNATTACHED +IV. THE NEW DOCTRINE +V. QUICKSANDS +VI. GAD AND MENI + +Volume 4. +VII. OF CERTAIN DELICATE MATTERS +VIII. OF MENTAL PROCESSES-FEMININE AND INSOLUBLE +IX. INTRODUCING A REVOLUTIONIZING VEHICLE +X. ON THE ART OF LION TAMING +XI. CONTAINING SOME REVELATIONS + + +BOOK III +Volume 5. +I. ASCENDI +II. THE PATH OF PHILANTHROPY +III. VINELAND +IV. THE VIKING +V. 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 HEART +IX. WYLIE STREET +X. THE PRICE OF FREEDOM + +Volume 7. +XI. IN WHICH IT IS ALL DONE OVER AGAIN +XII. THE ENTRANCE INTO EDEN +XIII. OF THE WORLD BEYOND THE GATES. +XIV. CONTAINING PHILOSOPHY FROM MR. GRAINGER +XV. THE PILLARS OF SOCIETY + +Volume 8. +XVI. IN WHICH A MIRROR IS HELD UP +XVII. THE RENEWAL OF AN ANCIENT HOSPITALITY +XVIII. IN WHICH MR. ERWIN SEES PARIS + + + + + +A MODERN CHRONICLE + +Volume 1. + + +CHAPTER I + +WHAT'S IN HEREDITY + +Honora Leffingwell is the original name of our heroine. She was born in +the last quarter of the Nineteenth Century, at Nice, in France, and she +spent the early years of her life in St. Louis, a somewhat conservative +old city on the banks of the Mississippi River. Her father was Randolph +Leffingwell, and he died in the early flower of his manhood, while +filling with a grace that many remember the post of United States Consul +at Nice. As a linguist he was a phenomenon, and his photograph in the +tortoise-shell frame proves indubitably, to anyone acquainted with the +fashions 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 +through Kentucky in a coach and six, and he was the equal in appearance +and manners of any duke who lingered beside classic seas. + +Honora has often pictured to herself a gay villa set high above the +curving shore, the amethyst depths shading into emerald, laced with +milk-white foam, the vivid colours of the town, the gay costumes; the +excursions, the dinner-parties presided over by the immaculate young +consul in three languages, and the guests chosen from the haute noblesse +of Europe. Such was the vision in her youthful mind, added to by degrees +as she grew into young-ladyhood and surreptitiously became familiar with +the writings of Ouida and the Duchess, and other literature of an +educating cosmopolitan nature. + +Honora's biography should undoubtedly contain a sketch of Mrs. Randolph +Leffingwell. Beauty and dash and a knowledge of how to seat a table. +seem to have been the lady's chief characteristics; the only daughter of +a carefully dressed and carefully, preserved widower, likewise a +linguist,--whose super-refined tastes and the limited straits to which +he, the remaining scion of an old Southern family, had been reduced by a +gentlemanly contempt for money, led him 'to choose Paris rather than New +York as a place of residence. One of the occasional and carefully +planned trips to the Riviera proved fatal to the beautiful but reckless +Myrtle Allison. She, who might have chosen counts or dukes from the +Tagus to the Danube, or even crossed the Channel; took the dashing but +impecunious American consul, with a faith in his future that was sublime. +Without going over too carefully the upward path which led to the post of +their country's representative at the court of St. James, neither had the +slightest doubt that Randolph Leffingwell would tread it. + +It is needless to dwell upon the chagrin of Honora's maternal +grandfather, Howard Allison Esquire, over this turn of affairs, this +unexpected bouleversement, as he spoke of it in private to his friends +in his Parisian club. For many years he had watched the personal +attractions of his daughter grow, and a brougham and certain other +delights not to be mentioned had gradually become, in his mind, +synonymous with old age. The brougham would have on its panels the +Allison crest, and his distinguished (and titled) son-in-law would drop +in occasionally at the little apartment on the Boulevard Haussmann. +Alas, for visions, for legitimate hopes shattered forever! On the day +that Randolph Leffingwell led Miss Allison down the aisle of the English +church the vision of the brougham and the other delights faded. Howard +Allison went back to his club. + +Three years later, while on an excursion with Sir Nicholas Baker and a +merry party on the Italian aide, the horses behind which Mr. and Mrs. +Leffingwell were driving with their host ran away, and in the flight +managed to precipitate the vehicle, and themselves, down the side of one +of the numerous deep valleys of the streams seeking the Mediterranean. +Thus, by a singular caprice of destiny Honors was deprived of both her +parents at a period which--some chose to believe--was the height of their +combined glories. Randolph Leffingwell lived long enough to be taken +back to Nice, and to consign his infant daughter and sundry other +unsolved problems to his brother Tom. + +Brother Tom--or Uncle Tom, as we must call him with Honora--cheerfully +accepted the charge. For his legacies in life had been chiefly blessings +in disguise. He was paying teller of the Prairie Bank, and the +thermometer registered something above 90deg Fahrenheit on the July +morning when he stood behind his wicket reading a letter from Howard +Allison, Esquire, relative to his niece. Mr. Leffingwell was at this +period of his life forty-eight, but the habit he had acquired of assuming +responsibilities and burdens seemed to have had the effect of making his +age indefinite. He was six feet tall, broad-shouldered, his mustache and +hair already turning; his eyebrows were a trifle bushy, and his eyes +reminded men of one eternal and highly prized quality--honesty. They +were blue grey. Ordinarily they shed a light which sent people away from +his window the happier without knowing why; but they had been known, on +rare occasions, to flash on dishonesty and fraud like the lightnings of +the Lord. Mr. Isham, the president of the bank, coined a phrase about +him. He said that Thomas Leffingwell was constitutionally honest. + +Although he had not risen above the position of paying teller, Thomas +Leffingwell had a unique place in the city of his birth; and the esteem +in which he was held by capitalists and clerks proves that character +counts for something. On his father's failure and death he had entered +the Prairie Bank, at eighteen, and never left it. If he had owned it, +he could 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 seersucker +coat reading the unquestionably pompous letter of Mr. Allison announcing +that his niece was on the high seas, he returned the greetings of his +friends with his usual kindness and cheer. In an adjoining compartment a +long-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 +he was a favourite in the bank, where he had been introduced by Mr. +Leffingwell himself. He was an orphan and lived with his grandmother, +an impoverished old lady with good blood in her veins who boarded in +Graham's Row, on Olive Street. Suffice it to add, at this time, that he +worshipped Mr. Leffingwell, and that he was back in a twinkling with the +information that Mr. Isham was awaiting him. + +The president was seated at his desk. In spite of the thermometer he +gave no appearance of discomfort in his frock-coat. He had scant, sandy- +grey whiskers, a tightly closed and smooth-shaven upper lip, a nose with- +a decided ridge, and rather small but penetrating eyes in which the blue +pigment had been used sparingly. His habitual mode of speech was both +brief and sharp, but people remarked that he modified it a little for Tom +Leffingwell. + +"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 the +bank president's characteristics was an extreme interest in the private +affairs of those who came within his zone of influence and especially +when these affairs evinced any irregularity. + +"Randolph again?" he asked quickly. + +Tom walked to the window, and stood looking out into the street. His +voice 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 voice +was firm, his face certainly betrayed no feeling, but a flitting gleam of +satisfaction 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, that +journey to New York (their first) of two nights and two days to fetch +Honora. We need not dwell upon all that befell them. The first view of +the Hudson, the first whiff of the salt air on this unwonted holiday, the +sights of this crowded city of wealth,--all were tempered by the thought +of the child coming into their lives. They were standing on the pier +when the windows were crimson in the early light, and at nine o'clock on +that summer's morning the Albania was docked, and the passengers came +crowding down the gang-plank. Prosperous tourists, most of them, with +servants and stewards carrying bags of English design and checked steamer +rugs; and at last a ruddy-faced bonne with streamers and a bundle of +ribbons and laces--Honora--Honora, aged eighteen months, gazing at a +subjugated world. + +"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. Three +children of various sizes clung to her skirts, and a younger nurse +carried a golden-haired little girl of Honora's age. A lady and +gentleman followed. The lady was beginning to look matronly, and no +second glance was required to perceive that she was a person of opinion +and character. Mr. Holt was smaller than his wife, neat in dress and +unobtrusive in appearance. In the rich Mrs. Holt, the friend of the +Randolph Leffingwells, Aunt Mary was prepared to find a more vapidly +fashionable personage, and had schooled herself forthwith. + +"You are Mrs. Thomas Leffingwell?" she asked. "Well, I am relieved." +The lady's eyes, travelling rapidly over Aunt Mary's sober bonnet and +brooch and gown, made it appear that these features in Honora's future +guardian gave her the relief in question. "Honora, this is your aunt." + +Honora smiled from amidst the laces, and Aunt Mary, only too ready to +capitulate, surrendered. She held out her arms. Tears welled up in the +Frenchwoman's eyes as she abandoned her charge. + +"Pauvre mignonne!" she cried. + +But Mrs. Holt rebuked the nurse sharply, in French,--a language with +which neither Aunt Mary nor Uncle Tom was familiar. Fortunately, +perhaps. Mrs. Holt's remark was to the effect that Honora was going to a +sensible home. + +"Hortense loves her better than my own children," said that lady. + +Honora seemed quite content in the arms of Aunt Mary, who was gazing so +earnestly 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 then +she declined politely. While grossing on the steamer, Mrs. Holt had +decided quite clearly in her mind just what she was going to say to the +child's future guardian, but there was something in Aunt Mary's voice and +manner which made these remarks seem unnecessary--although Mrs. Holt was +secretly disappointed not to deliver them. + +"It was fortunate that we happened to, be in Nice at the time," she said +with the evident feeling that some explanation was due. "I did not know +poor Mrs. Randolph Leffingwell very--very intimately, or Mr. Leffingwell. +It was such a sudden--such a terrible affair. But Mr. Holt and I were +only 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, being +tolerably sure that Mrs. Thomas Leffingwell understood. She had cleared +her 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 +little trunk, and settling certain matters with Mr. Holt, they said good- +by to her late kind protectors, and started off for the nearest street- +cars, Honora pulling Uncle Tom's mustache. More than one pedestrian +paused to look back at the tall man carrying the beautiful child, +bedecked like a young princess, and more than one passenger in the street +cars smiled at them both. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +PERDITA RECALLED + +Saint Louis, or that part of it which is called by dealers in real estate +the choice residence section, grew westward. And Uncle Tom might be said +to have been in the vanguard of the movement. In the days before Honora +was born he had built his little house on what had been a farm on the +Olive Street Road, at the crest of the second ridge from the river. Up +this ridge, with clanking traces, toiled the horse-cars that carried +Uncle Tom downtown to the bank and Aunt Mary to market. + +Fleeing westward, likewise, from the smoke, friends of Uncle Tom's and +Aunt Mary's gradually surrounded them--building, as a rule, the high +Victorian mansions in favour at that period, which were placed in the +centre of commodious yards. For the friends of Uncle Tom and Aunt Mary +were for the most part rich, and belonged, as did they, to the older +families of the city. Mr. Dwyer's house, with its picture gallery, was +across the street. + +In the midst of such imposing company the little dwelling which became +the home of our heroine sat well back in a plot that might almost be +called a garden. In summer its white wooden front was nearly hidden by +the quivering leaves of two tall pear trees. On the other side of the +brick walk, and near the iron fence, was an elm and a flower bed that was +Uncle Tom's pride and the admiration of the neighbourhood. Honora has +but to shut her eyes to see it aflame with tulips at Eastertide. The +eastern wall of the house was a mass of Virginia creeper, and beneath +that another flower bed, and still another in the back-yard behind the +lattice fence covered with cucumber vine. There were, besides, two +maples and two apricot trees, relics of the farm, and of blessed memory. +Such apricots! Visions of hot summer evenings come back, with Uncle Tom, +in his seersucker coat, with his green watering-pot, bending over the +beds, and Aunt Mary seated upright in her chair, looking up from her +knitting with a loving eye. + +Behind the lattice, on these summer evenings, stands the militant figure +of that old retainer, Bridget the cook, her stout arms akimbo, ready to +engage in vigorous banter should Honora deign to approach. + +"Whisht, 'Nora darlint, it's a young lady yell be soon, and the beaux a- +comin' 'round!" she would cry, and throw back her head and laugh until +the tears were in her eyes. + +And the princess, a slim figure in an immaculate linen frock with red +ribbons 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, Mary +Ann, the housemaid, whose kitchen chair was tilted up against the side of +the woodshed. "It'll be Miss Honora next, and George Hanbury here to-day +with his eye through a knothole in the fence, out of his head for a sight +of ye." + +George Hanbury was Honora's cousin, and she did not deem his admiration a +subject 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 +to Honora at twelve years of age. Perdita may have had such dreams. +She had been born, she knew, in some wondrous land by the shores of the +summer seas, not at all like St. Louis, and friends and relatives had not +hesitated to remark in her hearing that she resembled--her father,--that +handsome father who surely must have been a prince, whose beforementioned +photograph in the tortoise-shell frame was on the bureau in her little +room. So far as Randolph Leffingwell was concerned, photography had not +been invented for nothing. Other records of him remained which Honora +had likewise seen: one end of a rose-covered villa--which Honora thought +was a wing of his palace; a coach and four he was driving, and which had +chanced to belong to an Englishman, although the photograph gave no +evidence of this ownership. Neither Aunt Mary nor Uncle Tom had ever +sought--for reasons perhaps obvious--to correct the child's impression of +an extraordinary paternity. + +Aunt Mary was a Puritan of Southern ancestry, and her father had been a +Presbyterian minister, Uncle Tom was a member of the vestry of a church +still under Puritan influences. As a consequence for Honora, there were +Sunday afternoons--periods when the imaginative faculty, in which she was +by no means lacking, was given full play. She would sit by the hour in +the swing Uncle Tom had hung for her under the maple near the lattice, +while castles rose on distant heights against blue skies. There was her +real home, in a balconied chamber that overlooked mile upon mile of +rustling forest in the valley; and when the wind blew, the sound of it +was like the sea. Honora did not remember the sea, but its music was +often in her ears. + +She would be aroused from these dreams of greatness by the appearance of +old Catherine, her nurse, on the side porch, reminding her that it was +time to wash for supper. No princess could have had a more humble +tiring-woman than Catherine. + +Honora cannot be unduly blamed. When she reached the "little house under +the hill" (as Catherine called the chamber beneath the eaves), she beheld +reflected in the mirror an image like a tall, white flower that might +indeed have belonged to a princess. Her hair, the colour of burnt +sienna, fell evenly to her shoulders; her features even then had +regularity and hauteur; her legs, in their black silk stockings, were +straight; and the simple white lawn frock made the best of a slender +figure. Those frocks of Honora's were a continual source of wonder +and sometimes of envy--to Aunt Mary's friends; who returned from the +seaside in the autumn, after a week among the fashions in Boston or New +York, to find Honora in the latest models, and better dressed than their +own children. Aunt Mary made no secret of the methods by which these +seeming miracles were performed, and showed Cousin Eleanor Hanbury the +fashion plates in the English periodicals. Cousin Eleanor sighed. + +"Mary, you are wonderful," she would say. "Honora's clothes are better- +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 Aunt +Mary. She looked like a little Quakeress. Her silvered hair was parted +in the middle and had, in spite of palpable efforts towards tightness and +repression, a perceptible ripple in it. Grey was her only concession to +colour, and her gowns and bonnets were of a primness which belonged to +the past. Repression, or perhaps compression, was her note, for the +energy confined within her little body was a thing to have astounded +scientists: And Honora grew to womanhood and reflection before she had. +guessed or considered that her aunt was possessed of intense emotions +which had no outlet. Her features were regular, her shy eye had the +clearness of a forest pool. She believed in predestination, which is to +say that she was a fatalist; and while she steadfastly continued to +regard this world as a place of sorrow and trials, she concerned herself +very little about her participation in a future life. Old Dr. Ewing, the +rector of St. Anne's, while conceding that no better or more charitable +woman existed, found it so exceedingly difficult to talk to her, on the +subject of religion that he had never tried it but once. + +Such was Aunt Mary. The true student of human nature should not find it +surprising that she spoiled Honora and strove--at what secret expense, +care, and self-denial to Uncle Tom and herself, none will ever know--to +adorn the child that she might appear creditably among companions whose +parents were more fortunate in this world's goods; that she denied +herself to educate Honora as these other children were educated. Nor is +it astonishing that she should not have understood the highly complex +organism of the young lady we have chosen for our heroine, who was +shaken, at the age of thirteen, by unfulfilled longings. + +Very early in life Honora learned to dread the summer, when one by one +the families of her friends departed until the city itself seemed a +remote 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 servants +who had been left behind chattered on the front steps. Honora could not +bear the sound of the trains that drifted across the night, and the sight +of the trunks piled in the Hanburys' hall, in Wayland Square, always +filled her with a sickening longing. Would the day ever come when she, +too, would depart for the bright places of the earth? Sometimes, when +she looked in the mirror, she was filled with a fierce belief in a +destiny to sit in the high seats, to receive homage and dispense +bounties, to discourse with great intellects, to know London and Paris +and the marts and centres of the world as her father had. To escape-- +only to escape from the prison walls of a humdrum existence, and to soar! + +Let us, if we can, reconstruct an August day when all (or nearly all) +of Honora's small friends were gone eastward to the mountains or the +seaside. In "the little house under the hill," the surface of which was +a hot slate roof, Honora would awake about seven o'clock to find old +Catherine bending over her in a dun-coloured calico dress, with the light +fiercely beating against the closed shutters that braved it so +unflinchingly throughout the day. + +"The birds are before ye, Miss Honora, honey, and your uncle waterin' his +roses this half-hour." + +Uncle Tom was indeed an early riser. As Honora dressed (Catherine +assisting as at a ceremony), she could see him, in his seersucker coat, +bending tenderly over his beds; he lived enveloped in a peace which has +since struck wonder to Honora's soul. She lingered in her dressing, even +in those days, falling into reveries from which Catherine gently and +deferentially aroused her; and Uncle Tom would be carving the beefsteak +and Aunt Mary pouring the coffee when she finally arrived in the dining +room 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 kiss +Aunt Mary and walk to the corner to wait for the ambling horse-car that +was to take him to the bank. Sometimes Honora went to the corner with +him, and he waved her good-by from the platform as he felt in his pocket +for the nickel that was to pay his fare. + +When Honora returned, Aunt Mary had donned her apron, and was +industriously aiding Mary Ann to wash the dishes and maintain the +customary high polish on her husband's share of the Leffingwell silver +which, standing on the side table, shot hither and thither rays of green +light that filtered through the shutters into the darkened room. The +child partook of Aunt Mary's pride in that silver, made for a Kentucky +great-grandfather Leffingwell by a famous Philadelphia silversmith three- +quarters of a century before. Honora sighed. + +"What's the matter, Honora?" asked Aunt Mary, without pausing in her +vigorous rubbing. + +"The Leffingwells used to be great once upon a time, didn't they, Aunt +Mary?" + +"Your Uncle Tom," answered Aunt Mary, quietly, "is the greatest man I +know, child." + +"And my father must have been a great man, too," cried Honora, "to have +been a consul and drive coaches." + +Aunt Mary was silent. She was not a person who spoke easily on difficult +subjects. + +"Why don't you ever talk to me about my father, Aunt Mary? Uncle Tom +does." + +"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 at +my 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, whose +head was thrown back. + +"What kind of ambition do you mean, Honora?" + +"Oh," cried Honora, "to be great and rich and powerful, and to be +somebody." + +"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 I +became great." + +Alas, that Aunt Mary, with all her will, should have such limited powers +of expression! She resumed her scrubbing of the silver before she spoke. + +"To do one's duty, to accept cheerfully and like a Christian the +responsibilities and burdens of life, is the highest form of greatness, +my child. Your Uncle Tom has had many things to trouble him; he has +always worked for others, and not for himself. And he is respected and +loved 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, and +owned horses. Isn't that being rich?" + +Poor Aunt Mary! + +"Honora," she answered, "there are some things you are too young to +understand. But try to remember, my dear, that happiness doesn't consist +in 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 +an upright, public-spirited man, and he thinks a great deal of your Uncle +Tom." + +"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 +of Mr. 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 little imagination a child like Honora to bring up in the straight and +narrow path. + +"When I go on Sunday afternoons with Uncle Tom to see Mr. Dwyer's +pictures," Honora persisted, "I always feel that he is so glad to have +what 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, such +faults as this became as nothing. + +"And when" said Honora, "when Mrs. Dwyer has dinner-parties for +celebrated people who come here, why does she invite you in to see the +table?" + +"Out of kindness, Honora. Mrs. Dwyer knows that I enjoy looking at +beautiful things." + +"Why doesn't she invite you to the dinners?" asked Honora, hotly. +"Our family 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 +that I am not a person who can entertain distinguished people, and that +I do not go out, and that I haven't the money to buy evening dresses. +And even if 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 her +account of this conversation, was of the opinion that to take Honora to +task for her fancies would be waste of breath; that they would right +themselves 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 know +Honora 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'm +afraid it's given the child a taste for--for self-adornment." + +"I once had a fond belief that all women possessed such a taste," said +Uncle Tom, with a quizzical look at his own exception. "To tell you the +truth, I never classed it as a fault." + +"Then I don't see why you married me," said Aunt Mary--a periodical +remark of hers. "But, Tom, I do wish her to appear as well as the other +children, 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?" he +asked. + +"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 her +face, and smiled again. Although she held herself very straight, the top +of 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 never +dying interest, which held no taint of envy, in the doings of people more +fortunate than herself. In the long summer days, after her silver was +cleaned and her housekeeping and marketing finished, she read in the +book-club periodicals of royal marriages, embassy balls, of great town +and country houses and their owners at home and abroad. And she knew, +by means of a correspondence with Cousin Eleanor Hanbury and other +intimates, the kind of cottages in which her friends sojourned at the +seashore or in the mountains; how many rooms they had, and how many +servants, and very often who the servants were; she was likewise informed +on the climate, and the ease with which it was possible to obtain fresh +vegetables. 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, +who was ill, Honora further surprised her aunt by exclaiming: +"How can you talk of things other people have and not want them, +Aunt Mary?" + +"Why should I desire what I cannot have, my dear? I take such pleasure +out of my friends' possessions as I can." + +"But you want to go to the seashore, I know you do. I've heard you say +so," 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. +And I know how the salt water smells--which is as much, perhaps, as I +have the right to hope for. But I have often thought it would be nice +to sit for a whole summer by the sea and listen to the waves dashing upon +the beach, like those in the Chase picture in Mr. Dwyer's gallery." + +Aunt Mary little guessed the unspeakable rebellion aroused in Honora by +this acknowledgment of being fatally circumscribed. Wouldn't Uncle Tom +ever 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 +to do his duty in that sphere where God had placed him. + +Poor Aunt Mary. Honora never asked her uncle such questions: to do so +never occurred to her. At peace with all men, he gave of his best to +children, and Honora remained a child. Next to his flowers, walking was +Uncle Tom's chief recreation, and from the time she could be guided by +the hand she went with him. His very presence had the gift of dispelling +longings, even in the young; the gift of compelling delight in simple +things. Of a Sunday afternoon, if the heat were not too great, he would +take Honora to the wild park that stretches westward of the city, and +something of the depth and intensity of his pleasure in the birds, the +forest, and the wild flowers would communicate itself to her. She +learned all unconsciously (by suggestion, as it were) to take delight in +them; a delight that was to last her lifetime, a never failing resource +to which she was to turn again and again. In winter, they went to the +botanical gardens 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 knew him, and spoke to him with kindly respect. Nay, it seemed +to Honora that the very animals knew him, and offered themselves +ingratiatingly to be stroked by one whom they recognized as friend. +Jaded horses in the street lifted their noses; stray, homeless cats +rubbed against his legs, and vagrant dogs looked up at him trustfully +with wagging tails. + +Yet his goodness, as Emerson would have said, had some edge to it. +Honora had seen the light of anger in his blue eye--a divine ray. Once +he had chastised her for telling Aunt Mary a lie (she could not have lied +to him) and Honora had never forgotten it. The anger of such a man had +indeed some element in it of the divine; terrible, not in volume, but in +righteous intensity. And when it had passed there was no occasion for +future warning. The memory of it lingered. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +CONCERNING PROVIDENCE + +What quality was it in Honora that compelled Bridget to stop her ironing +on Tuesdays in order to make hot waffles for a young woman who was late +to breakfast? Bridget, who would have filled the kitchen with righteous +wrath if Aunt Mary had transgressed the rules of the house, which were +like the laws of the Medes and Persians! And in Honora's early youth +Mary Ann, the housemaid, spent more than one painful evening writing home +for cockle shells and other articles to propitiate our princess, who +rewarded her with a winning smile and a kiss, which invariably melted the +honest girl into tears. The Queen of Scots never had a more devoted +chamber woman than old Catherine,--who would have gone to the stake with +a smile to 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 a casual wish had been expressed. The saints themselves must at +times have been aweary from hearing Honora's name. + +Not to speak of Christmas! Christmas in the little house was one wild +delirium of joy. The night before the festival was, to all outward +appearances, an ordinary evening, when Uncle Tom sat by the fire in his +slippers, as usual, scouting the idea that there would be any Christmas +at all. Aunt Mary sewed, and talked with maddening calmness of the news +of the day; but for Honora the air was charged with coming events of the +first magnitude. The very furniture of the little sitting-room had a +different air, the room itself wore a mysterious aspect, and the cannel- +coal fire seemed to give forth a special quality of unearthly light. + +"Is to-morrow Christmas?" Uncle Tom would exclaim. Bless me! Honora, +I am so 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,"--from +Aunt Mary. + +The unconscious irony in that command of Aunt Mary's!--to go right to +sleep! Many times was a head lifted from a small pillow, straining after +the meaning of the squeaky noises that came up from below! Not Santa +Claus. Honora's belief in him had merged into a blind faith in a larger +and even more benevolent, if material providence: the kind of providence +which Mr. Meredith depicts, and which was to say to Beauchamp: "Here's +your marquise;" a particular providence which, at the proper time, gave +Uncle Tom money, and commanded, with a smile, "Buy this for Honora--she +wants it." All-sufficient reason! Soul-satisfying philosophy, to which +Honora was to cling for many years of life. It is amazing how much can +be wrung from a reluctant world by the mere belief in this kind of +providence. + +Sleep came at last, in the darkest of the hours. And still in the dark +hours a stirring, a delicious sensation preceding reason, and the +consciousness 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 many +happy Christmases the like of this, Miss Honora." And Catherine's arms +were 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 at +all if ye was to make noise in the middle of the night--and it's little +better it is." + +Sleep! A despised waste of time in childhood. Catherine went to Mass, +and after an eternity, the grey December light began to sift through the +shutters, and human endurance had reached its limit. Honora, still +shivering, seized a fleecy wrapper (the handiwork of Aunt Mary) and +crept, a diminutive ghost, down the creaking stairway to the sitting- +room. A sitting-room. which now was not a sitting-room, but for to-day +a place of magic. As though by a prearranged salute of the gods,--at +Honora's entrance the fire burst through the thick blanket of fine coal +which Uncle Tom had laid before going to bed, and with a little gasp of +joy that was almost pain, she paused on the threshold. That one flash, +like Pizarro's first sunrise over Peru, gilded the edge of infinite +possibilities. + +Needless to enumerate them. The whole world, as we know, was in a +conspiracy to spoil Honora. The Dwyers, the Cartwrights, the Haydens, +the Brices, the Ishams, and I know not how many others had sent their +tributes, and Honora's second cousins, the Hanburys, from the family +mansion behind the stately elms of Wayland Square--of which something +anon. A miniature mahogany desk, a prayer-book and hymnal which the +Dwyers had brought home from New York, endless volumes of a more secular +and (to Honora) entrancing nature; roller skates; skates for real ice, +when it should apppear in the form of sleet on the sidewalks; a sled; +humbler gifts from Bridget, Mary Ann, and Catherine, and a wonderful +coat, with hat to match, of a certain dark green velvet. When Aunt Mary +appeared, an hour or so later, Honora was surveying her magnificence in +the glass. + +"Oh, Aunt Mary!" she cried, with her arms tightly locked around her +aunt'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 Mary +did not explain that this coat had been her one engrossing occupation for +six weeks, at such times when Honora was out or tucked away safely in +bed. + +Perhaps Honora's face fell a little. Aunt Mary scanned it rather +anxiously. + +"Does that cause you to like it any less, Honora?" she asked. + +"Aunt Mary!" exclaimed Honora, in a tone of reproval. And added after a +little, "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 Peter +Erwin did not appear, bringing gifts. Peter Erwin, of whom we caught a +glimpse doing an errand for Uncle Tom in the bank. With the complacency +of the sun Honora was wont to regard this most constant of her +satellites. Her awakening powers of observation had discovered him in +bondage, and in bondage he had been ever since: for their acquaintance +had begun on the first Sunday afternoon after Honora's arrival in St. +Louis at the age of eighteen months. It will be remembered that Honora +was even then a coquette, and as she sat in her new baby-carriage under +the pear tree, flirted outrageously with Peter, who stood on one foot +from 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 Sunday +afternoons, a sort of understudy for Catherine. He took an amazing +delight in wheeling Honora up and down the yard, and up and down the +sidewalk. Brunhilde or Queen Elizabeth never wielded a power more +absolute, nor had an adorer more satisfactory; and of all his remarkable +talents, none were more conspicuous than his abilities to tell a story +and to choose a present. Emancipated from the perambulator, Honora +would watch for him at the window, and toddle to the gate to meet him, +a gentleman-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 open +the 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, is +six and twenty; a full-fledged lawyer, in the office of that most +celebrated of St. Louis practitioners, Judge Stephen Brice. For the +Peter Erwins of this world are queer creatures, and move rapidly without +appearing to the Honoras to move at all. A great many things have +happened to Peter since he had been a messenger boy in the bank. + +Needless to say, Uncle Tom had taken an interest in him. And, +according to Peter, this fact accounted for all the good fortune which +had followed. Shortly before the news came of his brother's death, Uncle +Tom had discovered that the boy who did his errands so willingly was +going to night school, and was the grandson of a gentleman who had fought +with credit in the Mexican War, and died in misfortune: the grandmother +was Peter's only living relative. Through Uncle Tom, Mr. Isham became +interested, and Judge Brice. There was a certain scholarship in the +Washington University which Peter obtained, and he worked his way through +the law school afterwards. + +A simple story, of which many a duplicate could be found in this country +of ours. In the course of the dozen years or so of its unravelling the +grandmother 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 he was, as usual, on Christmas morning, his arms so full that +he had had to push open the gate with his foot. + +"Well, well, well, well!" he said, stopping short on the doorstep and +surveying 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 and +depositing his parcels on the mahogany horsehair sofa. He chose one, +and seized 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 had +divested it of the tissue paper, holly, and red ribbon in which he had so +carefully wrapped it. For it is a royal trait to thank with the same +graciousness and warmth the donors of the humblest and the greatest +offerings. + +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 whom +Peter ever forgot. Although the smoke was even at that period beginning +to creep westward, the sun poured through the lace curtains into the +little dining-room and danced on the silver coffeepot as Aunt Mary poured +out Peter's cup, and the blue china breakfast plates were bluer than ever +because it was Christmas. The humblest of familiar articles took on the +air of a present. And after breakfast, while Aunt Mary occupied herself +with that immemorial institution,--which was to lure hitherwards so many +prominent citizens of St. Louis during the day,--eggnogg, Peter surveyed +the offerings which transformed the sitting-room. The table had been +pushed back against the bookcases, the chairs knew not their time- +honoured places, and white paper and red ribbon littered the floor. +Uncle Tom, relegated to a corner, pretended to read his newspaper, while +Honora flitted from Peter's knees to his, or sat cross-legged on the +hearthrug 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's see!" and he began counting on his fingers, which were long but +very strong--so strong that Honora could never loosen even one of them +when they gripped her. "One--two--three--eight Christmases before you +are twenty-one. We'll have enough things to set us up in housekeeping. +Or perhaps 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 are +always 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 not +wide 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 than +ever. + +"You've been reading--novels!" said Peter, in a terrible judicial voice. + +Honora flushed guiltily, and resumed her inspection of the stocking. +Miss Rossiter, a maiden lady of somewhat romantic tendencies, was +librarian of the 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 was Harold who had had "a certain air of distinction." + +"It isn't very kind of you to make fun of me when I pay you a +compliment," replied Honora, with dignity. + +"I was naturally put out," he declared gravely, "because you said you +wouldn't marry me. But I don't intend to give up. No man who is worth +his salt 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 key +to it--was a description of Honora's future husband. We cannot violate +the 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, and +more of Randolph Leffingwell; and that he did not live in St. Louis. + +An event of Christmas, after church, was the dinner of which Uncle Tom +and Aunt Mary and Honora partook with Cousin Eleanor Hanbury, who had +been a Leffingwell, and was a first cousin of Honora's father. Honora +loved the atmosphere of the massive, yellow stone house in Wayland +Square, with its tall polished mahogany doors and thick carpets, with its +deferential darky servants, some of whom had been the slaves of her great +uncle. To Honora, gifted with imagination, the house had an odour all +its own; a rich, clean odour significant, in later life, of wealth and +luxury and spotless housekeeping. And she knew it from top to bottom. +The spacious upper floor, which in ordinary dwellings would have been an +attic, was the realm of young George and his sisters, Edith and Mary +(Aunt Mary's namesake). Rainy Saturdays, all too brief, Honora had +passed there, when the big dolls' house in the playroom became the scene +of domestic dramas which Edith rehearsed after she went to bed, although +Mary took them more calmly. In his tenderer years, Honora even fired +George, and riots occurred which took the combined efforts of Cousin +Eleanor and Mammy Lucy to quell. It may be remarked, in passing, that +Cousin Eleanor looked with suspicion upon this imaginative gift of +Honora's, and had several serious conversations with Aunt Mary on the +subject. + +It was true, in a measure, that Honora quickened to life everything she +touched, and her arrival in Wayland Square was invariably greeted with +shouts 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 +the reality of a fate not by any means to be lived down. If George rode +the huge rocking-horse, he was Paul Revere, or some equally historic +figure, and sometimes, to Edith's terror, he was compelled to assume the +role of Bluebeard, when Honora submitted to decapitation with a fortitude +amounting to stoicism. Hide and seek was altogether too tame for her, a +stake of life and death, or imprisonment or treasure, being a necessity. +And many times was Edith extracted from the recesses of the cellar in a +condition bordering on hysterics, the day ending tamely with a Bible +story or a selection from "Little Women" read by Cousin Eleanor. + +In autumn, and again in spring and early summer before the annual +departure of the Hanbury family for the sea, the pleasant yard with its +wide shade trees and its shrubbery was a land of enchantment threatened +by a genie. Black Bias, the family coachman, polishing the fat carriage +horses in the stable yard, was the genie; and George the intrepid knight +who, spurred by Honora, would dash in and pinch Bias in a part of his +anatomy which the honest darky had never seen. An ideal genie, for he +could 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 in +which they lived a commonplace spot, and indeed they never could realize +its tremendous possibilities in her absence. What would the +Mediterranean Sea and its adjoining countries be to us unless the +wanderings of Ulysses and AEneas had made them real? And what would +Cousin Eleanor's yard have been without Honora? Whatever there was of +romance and folklore in Uncle Tom's library Honora had extracted at an +early age, and with astonishing ease had avoided that which was dry and +uninteresting. The result was a nomenclature for Aunt Eleanor's yard, in +which there was even a terra incognita wherefrom venturesome travellers +never returned, but were transformed into wild beasts or monkeys. + +Although they acknowledged her leadership, Edith and Mary were sorry for +Honora, for they knew that if her father had lived she would have had a +house and garden like theirs, only larger, and beside a blue sea where it +was warm always. Honora had told them so, and colour was lent to her +assertions by the fact that their mother, when they repeated this to her, +only smiled sadly, and brushed her eyes with her handkerchief. She was +even more beautiful when she did so, Edith told her,--a remark which +caused Mrs. Hanbury to scan her younger daughter closely; it smacked of +Honora. + +"Was Cousin Randolph handsome?" Edith demanded. Mrs. Hanbury started, +so vividly there arose before her eyes a brave and dashing figure, clad +in grey English cloth, walking by her side on a sunny autumn morning in +the Rue de la Paix. Well she remembered that trip abroad with her +mother, Randolph's aunt, and how attentive he was, and showed them the +best restaurants in which to dine. He had only been in France a short +time, but his knowledge of restaurants and the world in general had been +amazing, and his acquaintances legion. He had a way, which there was no +resisting, of taking people by storm. + +"Yes, dear," answered Mrs. Hanbury, absently, when the child repeated the +question, "he was very handsome." + +"Honora says he would have been President," put in George. "Of course +I don't believe it. She said they lived in a palace by the sea in the +south of France, with gardens and fountains and a lot of things like +that, and princesses and princes and eunuchs--" + +"And what!" exclaimed Mrs. Hanbury, aghast. + +"I know," said George, contemptuously, "she got that out of the Arabian +Nights." But this suspicion did not prevent him, the next time Honora +regaled them with more adventures of the palace by the summer seas, from +listening with a rapt attention. No two tales were ever alike. His +admiration for Honora did not wane, but increased. It differed from that +of his sisters, however, in being a tribute to her creative faculties, +while Edith's breathless faith pictured her cousin as having passed +through as many adventures as Queen Esther. George paid her a +characteristic 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't want a pony." + +He was forced to draw back a little from the heat of the conflagration he +had kindled. + +"George Hanbury," she cried, "don't you ever speak to me again! Never! +Do you understand?" + +It was thus that George, at some cost, had made a considerable discovery +which, for the moment, shook even his scepticism. Honora believed it all +herself. + +Cousin Eleanor Hanbury was a person, or personage, who took a deep and +abiding interest in her fellow-beings, and the old clothes of the Hanbury +family went unerringly to the needy whose figures most resembled those of +the original owners. For Mrs. Hanbury had a wide but comparatively +unknown charity list. She was, secretly, one of the many providence +which Honora accepted collectively, although it is by no means certain +whether Honora, at this period, would have thanked her cousin for tuition +at Miss Farmer's school, and for her daily tasks at French and music +concerning which Aunt Mary was so particular. On the memorable Christmas +morning when, arrayed in green velvet, she arrived with her aunt and +uncle for dinner in Wayland Square, Cousin Eleanor drew Aunt Mary into +her bedroom and 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 that +Tom has finished paying Randolph's debts." + +Mrs. Leffingwell was silent. + +"I thought not," said Mrs. Hanbury. "Now Randolph was my own cousin, and +I insist." + +Aunt Mary turned over the envelope, and there followed a few moments' +silence, broken only by the distant clamour of tin horns and other +musical 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 the +child 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 my +friends, Eleanor." + +Mrs. Hanbury laid her hand impulsively on Aunt Mary's. + +"No child I know of dresses half as well," said Mrs. Hanbury. "The +trouble you take--" + +"Is rewarded," said Aunt Mary. + +"Yes," Mrs. Hanbury agreed. "If my own daughters were half as good +looking, 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 good +looks," 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 accuse +her of the weakness of flattery. So Mrs. Hanbury smiled, and dropped the +subject. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +OF TEMPERAMENT + +We have the word of Mr. Cyrus Meeker that Honora did not have to learn to +dance. The art came to her naturally. Of Mr. Cyrus Meeker, whose +mustaches, at the age of five and sixty, are waxed as tight as ever, and +whose little legs to-day are as nimble as of yore. He has a memory like +Mr. Gladstone's, and can give you a social history of the city that is +well 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 of +his first lesson to that distinguished young gentleman; and how, although +Mr. Meeker's shins were sore, he pleaded nobly for Mr. George, who was +sent home in the carriage by himself,--a punishment, by the way, which +Mr. George desired above all things. + +This celebrated incident occurred in the new ballroom at the top of the +new house of young Mrs. Hayden, where the meetings of the dancing class +were held weekly. Today the soot, like the ashes of Vesuvius, spouting +from ten thousand soft-coal craters, has buried that house and the whole +district fathoms deep in social obscurity. And beautiful Mrs. Hayden +what has become of her? And Lucy Hayden, that doll-like darling of the +gods? + +All this belongs, however, to another history, which may some day be +written. This one is Honora's, and must be got on with, for it is to be +a chronicle of lightning changes. Happy we if we can follow Honora, and +we must be prepared to make many friends and drop them in the process. + +Shortly after Mrs. Hayden had built that palatial house (which had a high +fence around its grounds and a driveway leading to a porte-cochere) and +had given her initial ball, the dancing class began. It was on a blue +afternoon in late November that Aunt Mary and Honora, with Cousin Eleanor +and the two girls, and George sulking in a corner of the carriage, were +driven 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 and +mysterious and altogether inspiring fashion of things. Mrs. Hayden +represented the outposts in the days of Richardson and Davenport--had +Honora but known it. This great house was all so different from anything +she (and many others in the city) had ever seen. And she stood gazing +into the drawing room, with its curtains and decorously drawn shades, +in a 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 things +gave her a sort of pain--when she did not yet know it herself? There was +the massive stairway, for instance, which they ascended, softly lighted +by a great leaded window of stained glass on the first landing; and the +spacious bedrooms with their shining brass beds and lace spreads (another +innovation which Honora resolved to adopt when she married); and at last, +far above all, its deep-set windows looking out above the trees towards +the park a mile to the westward, the ballroom,--the ballroom, with its +mirrors and high chandeliers, and chairs of gilt and blue set against the +walls, all of which made no impression whatever upon George and Mary and +Edith, but gave Honora a thrill. No wonder that she learned to dance +quickly under such an inspiration! + +And how pretty Mrs. Hayden looked as she came forward to greet them and +kissed Honora! She had been Virginia Grey, and scarce had had a gown to +her back when she had married the elderly Duncan Hayden, who had built +her this house and presented her with a checkbook,--a check-book which +Virginia 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 the +young men in Mrs. Hayden's train (and all young men were) who played at +Harvard or Yale or Princeton; those days were too care-free to have +endured. + +"Aunt Mary," asked Honora, when they were home again in the lamplight of +the little sitting-room, "why was it that Mr. Meeker was so polite to +Cousin 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 in +Mr. Meeker's eyes." + +"If I were a man," cried Honora, fiercely, "I should never rest until I +had made enough money to make Mr. Meeker wriggle." + +"Honora, come here," said her aunt, gazing in troubled surprise at the +tense little figure by the mantel. "I don't know what could have put +such things into your head, my child. Money isn't everything. In times +of real trouble it cannot save one." + +"But it can save one from humiliation!" exclaimed Honora, unexpectedly. +Another sign of a peculiar precociousness, at fourteen, with which Aunt +Mary was finding herself unable to cope. "I would rather be killed than +humiliated by Mr. Meeker." + +Whereupon she flew out of the room and upstairs, where old Catherine, in +dismay, 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 unswerving +and undemonstrative devotion. Her words of comfort were as few as her +silent 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, and +perplexed Cousin Eleanor. Mr. Meeker's cringing soul responded, and in +a month Honora was the leading spirit of the class, led the marches, and +was pointed out by the little dancing master as all that a lady should be +in deportment and bearing. + +This treatment, which succeeded so well in Mr. Meeker's case, Honora had +previously applied to others of his sex. Like most people with a future, +she began young. Of late, for instance, Mr. George Hanbury had shown a +tendency to regard her as his personal property; for George had a high- +handed way with him,--boys being an enigma to his mother. Even in those +days he had a bullet head and a red face and square shoulders, and was +rather undersized for his age--which was Honora's. + +Needless to say, George did not approve of the dancing class; and let +it be known, both by words and deeds, that he was there under protest. +Nor did he regard with favour Honora's triumphal progress, but sat in a +corner with several congenial spirits whose feelings ranged from scorn to +despair, commenting in loud whispers upon those of his sex to whom the +terpsichorean art came more naturally. Upon one Algernon Cartwright, for +example, whose striking likeness to the Van Dyck portrait of a young king +had been more than once commented upon by his elders, and whose velveteen +suits enhanced the resemblance. Algernon, by the way, was the favourite +male pupil of Mr. Meeker; and, on occasions, Algernon and Honora were +called upon to give exhibitions for the others, the sight of which filled +George with contemptuous rage. Algernon danced altogether too much with +Honora,--so George informed his cousin. + +The simple result of George's protests was to make Honora dance with +Algernon the more, evincing, even at this period of her career, a +commendable determination to resent dictation. George should have lived +in the Middle Ages, when the spirit of modern American womanhood was as +yet unborn. Once he contrived, by main force, to drag her out into the +hall. + +"George," she said, "perhaps, if you'd let me alone perhaps I'd like you +better." + +"Perhaps," he retorted fiercely, "if you wouldn't make a fool of yourself +with 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 he +heard Mrs. Hayden's voice. + +"Unless I am tremendously mistaken, my dear," that lady was remarking to +Mrs. Dwyer, whose daughter Emily's future millions were powerless to +compel youths of fourteen to dance with her, although she is now happily +married, "unless I am mistaken, Honora will have a career. The child +will be 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 for +it," 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 his +debts," continued Mrs. Dwyer, "although his uncle, Eleanor Hanbury's +father, cancelled what Randolph had had from him in his will. It was +twenty-five thousand dollars. James Hanbury, you remember, had him +appointed consul at Nice. Randolph Leffingwell gave the impression of +conferring a favour when he borrowed money. I cannot understand why he +married that penniless and empty-headed beauty." + +"Perhaps," said Mrs. Hayden, "it was because of his ability to borrow +money 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, but +I tremble for her. She is utterly incapable of managing that child. If +Honora is a complicated mechanism now, what will she be at twenty? She +has elements in her which poor Mary never dreamed of. I overheard her +with 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 +I dressed the other afternoon. Mrs. Leffingwell had sent her with a note +about that French governess. And, by the way, she speaks French as +though she had lived in Paris." + +Little Mrs. Dwyer raised her hands in protest. + +"It doesn't seem natural, somehow. It doesn't seem exactly--moral, my +dear." + +"Nonsense," said Mrs. Hayden. "Mrs. Leffingwell is only giving the child +the 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 blame +Mary Leffingwell. She thinks she is doing her duty, but it has always +seemed to me that Honora was one of those children who would better have +been brought up on bread and butter and jam." + +"Honora would only have eaten the jam," said Mrs. Hayden. "But I love +her." + +"I, too, am fond of the child, but I tremble for her. I am afraid she +has that terrible thing which is called temperament." + +George Hanbury made a second heroic rush, and dragged Honora out once +more. + +"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 a +warmth 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 Hanbury +and Algernon Cartwright and other young gentlemen were at the seashore +learning to sail boats and to play tennis, Peter Erwin came to his own. +Nearly every evening after dinner, while the light was still lingering +under the shade trees of the street, and Aunt Mary still placidly sewing +in the wicker chair on the lawn, and Uncle Tom making the tour of flowers +with 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 evenings +would have been even less bearable than they were. To sit indoors with a +light and read in a St. Louis midsummer was not to be thought of. Peter +played backgammon with her on the front steps, and later on--chess. +Sometimes they went for a walk as far as Grand Avenue. And sometimes +when Honora 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 a +Coliseum? The very name, Uhrig's Cave, sent a shiver of delight down +one's spine, and many were the conjectures one made as to what might be +enclosed in that half a block of impassible brick wall, over which the +great trees stretched their branches. Honora, from comparative infancy, +had her own theory, which so possessed the mind of Edith Hanbury that she +would not look at the wall when they passed in the carriage. It was a +still and sombre place by day; and sometimes, if you listened, you could +hear 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 wooden +gates. + +At night, in the warm season, when well brought up children were at home +or 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 to +know these mysteries, and the Ali Baba theory a thing of the past. Other +theories had replaced it. Nevertheless she clung tightly to Peter's arm +as they walked down Locust Street and came in sight of the wall. Above +it, and under the big trees, shone a thousand glittering lights: there +was a crowd at the gate, and instead of saying, "Open, Sesame," Peter +slipped 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 was +not 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 +eye shine and one's heart beat. Under the trees were hundreds of tables +surrounded by hovering ministering angels in white, and if you were +German, they brought you beer; if American, ice-cream. Beyond the tables +was a stage, with footlights already set and orchestra tuning up, and a +curtain on which was represented a gentleman making decorous love to a +lady 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 neighbouring +tables turned more than once to smile at her that evening. And Peter +turned more than once and smiled too. But Honora did not consider Peter. +He was merely Providence in one of many disguises, and Providence is +accepted by his beneficiaries as a matter of fact. + +The rapture of a young lady of temperament is a difficult thing to +picture. The bird may feel it as he soars, on a bright August morning, +high above amber cliffs jutting out into indigo seas; the novelist may +feel it when the four walls of his room magically disappear and the +profound secrets of the universe are on the point of revealing +themselves. Honora gazed, and listened, and lost herself. She was no +longer in Uhrig's Cave, but in the great world, her soul a-quiver with +harmonies. + +"Pinafore," although a comic opera, held something tragic for Honora, and +opened 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 his +pleasure; he liked the music, and he enjoyed the delight of Honora. + +What is Peter? Let us cease looking at him through Honora's eyes and +taking him like daily bread, to be eaten and not thought about. From +one point of view, he is twenty-nine and elderly, with a sense of humour +unsuspected by young persons of temperament. Strive as we will, we have +only been able to see him in his role of Providence, or of the piper. +Has he no existence, no purpose in life outside of that perpetual +gentleman in 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 a +while, as he found a way for them through the crowd, Peter glanced down +at her, and something like a smile tugged at the corners of a decidedly +masculine mouth, and lit up his eyes. Suddenly, at Locust Street, under +the lamp, she stopped and surveyed him. She saw a very real, very human +individual, clad in a dark nondescript suit of clothes which had been +bought ready-made, and plainly without the bestowal of much thought, on +Fifth Street. The fact that they were a comparative fit was in itself a +tribute to the enterprise of the Excelsior Clothing Company, for Honora's +observation 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 too deep- +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 which +had always stood on Catherine's bureau. But to-night, by grace of some +added power of vision, she saw him with new and critical eyes. She was +surprised to discover that he was possessed of a quality with which she +had never associated him--youth. Not to put it too strongly--comparative +youth. + +"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's +horrid 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 me +a 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 the +wild 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's a 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 was +somewhere near the shade of the jungle." + +Honora laughed in spite of this apparent refutation of her theory of his +apparel, and shook her head. + +"Do be serious, Peter. You'd make much more of an impression on people +if you wore clothes that had--well, a little more distinction." + +"What's the use of making an impression if you can't follow it up?" +he said. + +"You can," she declared. "I never thought of it until to-night, but you +must have a great deal in you to have risen all the way from an errand +boy 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 to +dress--like Mr. Rossiter?" + +The picture evoked of Peter arrayed like Mr. Harland Rossiter, who had +sent flowers to two generations and was preparing to send more to a +third, was irresistible. Every city, hamlet, and village has its Harland +Rossiter. He need not be explained. But Honora soon became grave again. + +"No, but you ought to dress as though you were somebody, and different +from 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 +not wanting to be. If I were a man, I wouldn't stay here a day longer +than I had to." + +Peter was silent as they went in at the gate and opened the door, for on +this festive occasion they were provided with a latchkey. He turned up +the light in the hall to behold a transformation quite as wonderful as +any contained in the "Arabian Nights" or Keightley's "Fairy Mythology." +This was not the Honora with whom he had left the house scarce three +hours before! The cambric dress, to be sure, was still no longer than +the tops of her ankles and the hair still hung in a heavy braid down her +back. These were positively all that remained of the original Honora, +and the change had occurred in the incredibly brief space required for +the production of the opera "Pinafore." This Honora was a woman in a +strange and disturbing state of exaltation, whose eyes beheld a vision. +And Peter, although he had been the subject of her conversation, well +knew that he was not included in the vision. He smiled a little as he +looked at her. It is becoming apparent that he is one of those +unfortunate unimaginative 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 for +hours, 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 me then." + +"I shan't feel like it then," she said in a tone that implied his +opportunity was now or never. But seeing him still obdurate, with +startling suddenness she flung her arms mound his neck--a method which at +times had succeeded marvellously--and pleaded coaxingly: "Only a quarter +of an hour, Peter. I've got so many things to say, and I know I shall +forget 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 a brusque masculine creature which she did not recognize. With a +movement that was almost rough he released himself and fled, calling back +a "good night" to her out of the darkness. He did not even wait to +assist her in the process of locking up. Honora, profoundly puzzled, +stood for a while in the doorway gazing out into the night. When at +length she turned, she had forgotten him entirely. + +It was true that she did not sleep for hours, and on awaking the next +morning another phenomenon awaited her. The "little house under the +hill" was immeasurably shrunken. Poor Aunt Mary, who did not understand +that a performance of "Pinafore" could give birth to the unfulfilled +longings which result in the creation of high things, spoke to Uncle Tom +a week later concerning an astonishing and apparently abnormal access of +industry. + +"She's been reading all day long, Tom, or else shut up in her room, where +Catherine tells me she is writing. I'm afraid Eleanor Hanbury is right +when she says I don't understand the child. And yet she is the same to +me as though she were my own." + +It was true that Honora was writing, and that the door was shut, and that +she did not feel the heat. In one of the bookcases she had chanced upon +that immortal biography of Dr. Johnson, and upon the letters of another +prodigy of her own sex, Madame d'Arblay, whose romantic debut as an +authoress was inspiration in itself. Honora actually quivered when +she read of Dr. Johnson's first conversation with Miss Burney. To write +a book of the existence of which even one's own family did not know, to +publish it under a nom de plume, and to awake one day to fetes and fame +would be indeed to live! + +Unfortunately Honora's novel no longer exists, or the world might have +discovered a second Evelina. A regard for truth compels the statement +that it was never finished. But what rapture while the fever lasted! +Merely to take up the pen was to pass magically through marble portals +into the great world itself. + +The Sir Charles Grandison of this novel was, needless to say, not Peter +Erwin. He was none other than Mr. Randolph Leffingwell, under a very +thin disguise. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +IN WHICH PROVIDENCE BEEPS FAITH + +Two more years have gone by, limping in the summer and flying in the +winter, two more years of conquests. For our heroine appears to be one +of the daughters of Helen, born to make trouble for warriors and others +--and even for innocent bystanders like Peter Erwin. Peter was debarred +from entering those brilliant lists in which apparel played so great a +part. George Hanbury, Guy Rossiter, Algernon Cartwright, Eliphalet +Hopper Dwyer--familiarly known as "Hoppy"--and other young gentlemen +whose names are now but memories, each had his brief day of triumph. +Arrayed like Solomon in wonderful clothes from the mysterious and +luxurious East, they returned at Christmas-tide and Easter from college +to break lances over Honora. Let us say it boldly--she was like that: +she had the world-old knack of sowing discord and despair in the souls +of young men. She was--as those who had known that fascinating gentleman +were not slow to remark--Randolph Leffingwell over again. + +During the festival seasons, Uncle Tom averred, they wore out the latch +on the front gate. If their families possessed horses to spare, they +took Honora driving in Forest Park; they escorted her to those anomalous +dances peculiar to their innocent age, which are neither children's +parties nor full-fledged balls; their presents, while of no intrinsic +value--as one young gentleman said in a presentation speech--had an +enormous, if shy, significance. + +"What a beautiful ring you are wearing, Honora," Uncle Tom remarked slyly +one 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 exactly +insertable in a ten-cent piece from which everything had been removed but +the milling: removed with infinite loving patience by Mr. Rossiter, and +at the expense of much history and philosophy and other less important +things, in his college bedroom at New Haven. Honora wore it for a whole +week; a triumph indeed for Mr. Rossiter; when it was placed in a box in +Honora's bedroom, which contained other gifts--not all from him--and many +letters, in the writing of which learning had likewise suffered. The +immediate cause of the putting away of this ring was said to be the +renowned Clinton Howe, who was on the Harvard football eleven, and who +visited Mr. George Hanbury that Easter. Fortunate indeed the tailor who +was called upon to practise his art on an Adonis like Mr. Howe, and it +was remarked that he scarcely left Honora's side at the garden party and +dance which Mrs. Dwyer gave in honour of the returning heroes, on the +Monday of Easter week. + +This festival, on which we should like to linger, but cannot, took place +at the new Dwyer residence. For six months the Victorian mansion +opposite Uncle Tom's house had been sightless, with blue blinds drawn +down inside the plate glass windows. And the yellow stone itself was not +so yellow as it once had been, but had now the appearance of soiled +manilla wrapping paper, with black streaks here and there where the soot +had run. The new Dwyer house was of grey stone, Georgian and palatial, +with a picture-gallery twice the size of the old one; a magnificent and +fitting pioneer in a new city of palaces. + +Westward the star of Empire--away from the smoke. The Dwyer mansion, +with its lawns and gardens and heavily balustraded terrace, faced the +park that stretched away like a private estate to the south and west. +That same park with its huge trees and black forests that was Ultima +Thule in Honora's childhood; in the open places there had been real farms +and hayricks which she used to slide down with Peter while Uncle Tom +looked for wild flowers in the fields. It had been separated from the +city in those days by an endless country road, like a Via Claudia +stretching towards mysterious Germanian forests, and it was deemed a feat +for Peter to ride thither on his big-wheeled bicycle. Forest Park was +the country, and all that the country represented in Honora's childhood. +For Uncle Tom on a summer's day to hire a surrey at Braintree's Livery +Stable and drive thither was like--to what shall that bliss be compared +in these days when we go to Europe with indifference? + +And now Lindell Road--the Via Claudia of long, ago--had become Lindell +Boulevard, with granitoid sidewalks. And the dreary fields through which +it 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 you +could take an electric to within a block of the imposing grille +that surrounded the Dwyer grounds. Westward the star! + +Fading fast was the glory of that bright new district on top of the +second hill from the river where Uncle Tom was a pioneer. Soot had +killed the pear trees, the apricots behind the lattice fence had withered +away; asphalt and soot were slowly sapping the vitality of the maples on +the sidewalk; and sometimes Uncle Tom's roses looked as though they might +advantageously be given a coat of paint, like those in Alice in +Wonderland. Honora should have lived in the Dwyers' mansion-people who +are capable of judging said so. People who saw her at the garden party +said she had the air of belonging in such surroundings much more than +Emily, whom even budding womanhood had not made beautiful. And Eliphalet +Hopper Dwyer, if his actions meant anything, would have welcomed her to +that house, or built her another twice as fine, had she deigned to give +him the least encouragement. + +Cinderella! This was what she facetiously called herself one July +morning of that summer she was eighteen. + +Cinderella in more senses than one, for never had the city seemed more +dirty or more deserted, or indeed, more stifling. Winter and its +festivities were a dream laid away in moth balls. Surely Cinderella's +life had held no greater contrasts! To this day the odour of matting +brings back to Honora the sense of closed shutters; of a stifling south +wind stirring their slats at noonday; the vision of Aunt Mary, cool and +placid in a cambric sacque, sewing by the window in the upper hall, and +the sound of fruit venders crying in the street, or of ragmen in the +alley--"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 houses +in order that he might not be forgotten during the night, he slowly +departed. If Honora took her book under the maple tree in the yard, +she was confronted with that hideous wooden sign "To Let" on the Dwyer's +iron fence opposite, and the grass behind it was unkempt and overgrown +with weeds. Aunt Mary took an unceasing and (to Honora's mind) morbid +interest in the future of that house. + +"I suppose it will be a boarding-house," she would say, "it's much too +large for poor people to rent, and only poor people are coming into this +district now." + +"Oh, Aunt Mary!" + +"Well, my dear, why should we complain? We are poor, and it is +appropriate that we should live among the poor. Sometimes I think it is +a pity that you should have been thrown all your life with rich people, +my child. I am afraid it has made you discontented. It is no disgrace +to be poor. We ought to be thankful that we have everything we need." + +Honora put down her sewing. For she had learned to sew--Aunt Mary had +insisted 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 of +the 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 the +contradiction of this hope. She shook her head vigorously. + +"We shall always be, my child. Your Uncle Tom is getting old, and he has +always been too honest to make a great deal of money. And besides," she +added, "he has not that kind of ability." + +Uncle Tom might be getting old, but he seemed to Honora to be of the same +age as in her childhood. Some people never grow old, and Uncle Tom was +one of these. Fifteen years before he had been promoted to be the +cashier of the Prairie Bank, and he was the cashier to-day. He had the +same quiet smile, the same quiet humour, the same calm acceptance of +life. He seemed to bear no grudge even against that ever advancing +enemy, the soot, which made it increasingly difficult for him to raise +his flowers. Those which would still grow he washed tenderly night and +morning with his watering-pot. The greatest wonders are not at the ends +of the earth, but near us. It was to take many years for our heroine to +realize this. + +Strong faith alone could have withstood the continued contact with such a +determined fatalism as Aunt Mary's, and yet it is interesting to note +that Honora's belief in her providence never wavered. A prince was to +come who was to bear her away from the ragmen and the boarding-houses and +the soot: and incidentally and in spite of herself, Aunt Mary was to come +too, and Uncle Tom. And sometimes when she sat reading of an evening +under the maple, her book would fall to her lap and the advent of this +personage 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 in +disguise. Peter who, despite her efforts to teach him distinction in +dress, insisted upon wearing the same kind of clothes. A mild kind of +providence, Peter, whose modest functions were not unlike those of the +third horse which used to be hitched on to the street car at the foot +of the Seventeenth-Street hill: it was Peter's task to help pull Honora +through the interminable summers. Uhrig's Cave was an old story now: +mysteries were no longer to be expected in St. Louis. There was a great +panorama--or something to that effect--in the wilderness at the end of +one of the new electric lines, where they sometimes went to behold the +White Squadron of the new United States Navy engaged in battle with mimic +forts on a mimic sea, on the very site where the country place of Madame +Clement had been. The mimic sea, surrounded by wooden stands filled with +common people eating peanuts and popcorn, was none other than Madame +Clement's pond, which Honora remembered as a spot of enchantment. And +they went out in the open cars with these same people, who stared at +Honora as though she had got in by mistake, but always politely gave her +a seat. And Peter thanked them. Sometimes he fell into conversations +with them, and it was noticeable that they nearly always shook hands with +him at parting. Honora did not approve of this familiarity. + +"But they may be clients some day," he argued--a frivolous answer to +which she never deigned to reply. + +Just as one used to take for granted that third horse which pulled the +car uphill, so Peter was taken for granted. He might have been on the +highroad to a renown like that of Chief Justice Marshall, and Honora had +been none the wiser. + +"Well, Peter," said Uncle Tom at dinner one evening of that memorable +summer, when Aunt Mary was helping the blackberries, and incidentally +deploring that she did not live in the country, because of the cream one +got there, "I saw Judge Brice in the bank to-day, and he tells me you +covered 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's +self with glory. It was not, at any rate, her idea of glory. What were +lawyers for, if not to win suits? And Peter was a lawyer. + +"In five years," said Uncle Tom, "the firm will be 'Brice and Erwin'. +You mark 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 waste +of 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 Honora +was a child. But now--she may not wish to marry Peter. And Peter may +not wish to marry her." + +Even Peter joined in the laughter at this literal and characteristic +statement of the case. + +"It's more than likely," said Honora, wickedly. "He hasn't kissed me +for two 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 cross +the street, "I wish the child would marry him. Not now, of course," she +added hastily,--a little frightened by her own admission, "but later. +Sometimes I worry over her future. She needs a strong and sensible man. +I don't understand Honora. I never did. I always told you so. +Sometimes I think she may be capable of doing something foolish like +--like Randolph." + +Uncle Tom patted his wife on the shoulder. + +"Don't borrow trouble, Mary," he said, smiling a little. "The child is +only full of spirits. But she has a good heart. It is only human that +she should 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," he +declared. + +"And I have given her," she continued, "a taste for dress." + +"I think, my dear," said her husband, "that there were others who +contributed to that." + +"It was my own vanity. I should have combated the tendency in her," said +Aunt 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 were +speeding westward. They had a seat to themselves, the very first one on +the "grip"--that survival of the days of cable cars. Honora's eyes +brightened as she held on to her hat, and the stray wisps of hair about +her neck stirred in the breeze. + +"Oh, I wish we would never stop, until we came to the Pacific Ocean!" +she exclaimed. + +"Would you be content to stop then?" he asked. He had a trick of looking +downward with a quizzical expression in his dark grey eyes. + +"No," said Honora. "I should want to go on and see everything in the +world worth seeing. Sometimes I feel positively as though I should die +if I 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 +New York--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 something +happens to us." + +"What would you like to happen?" he asked, curiously. And there was a +note 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 rut +and be something in the world. It's dreadful to feel that one has power +and not be able to use it." + +The car stopped at the terminal. Thanks to the early hour of Aunt Mary's +dinner, the western sky was still aglow with the sunset over the forests +as they walked past the closed grille of the Dwyer mansion into the park. +Children rolled on the grass, while mothers and fathers, tired out from +the heat and labour of a city day, sat on the benches. Peter stooped +down and lifted a small boy, painfully thin, who had fallen, weeping, on +the gravel walk. He took his handkerchief and wiped the scratch on the +child's forehead. + +"There, there!" he said, smiling, "it's all right now. We must expect a +few 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 bother +with him," he said gratefully. "It's that thin he is with the heat, +I take him out for a bit of country air." + +"Why, Tim, it's you, is it?" said Peter. "He's the janitor of our +building down town," he explained to Honora, who had remained a silent +witness to this simple scene. She had been, in spite of herself, +impressed by it, and by the mingled respect and affection in the +janitor's manner towards Peter. It was so with every one to whom he +spoke. They walked on in silence for a few moments, into a path leading +to 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 to +be 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 him +as having any desires whatever. + +"I want a house like Mr. Dwyer's," he declared, pointing at the distant +imposing roof line against the fading eastern sky. + +Honora laughed. The idea of Peter wishing such a house was indeed +ridiculous. 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 of +themselves 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 in +his pockets. He looked very solemn, but she knew he was smiling +inwardly. + +"Why--because I can't," she said, and hesitated. The question had forced +her to think about Peter. "I can't imagine you living all alone in all +that 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 like +that, 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 knowledge of eighteen. + +"I'm waiting for you, Honora," he announced. + +"You know I love you, Peter,"--so she tempered her reply, for Honora's +feelings were tender. What man, even Peter, would not have married her +if he could? Of course he was in earnest, despite his bantering tone. +"but I never could--marry you." + +"Not even if I were to offer you a house like Mr. Dwyer's?" he said. +A remark which betrayed--although not to her--his knowledge of certain +earthly 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 of +repressed masculine force, of reserve power, which she had never before +felt about Peter Erwin, invaded her; and she was seized with a strange +uneasiness. Ridiculous was the thought (which she lost no time in +rejecting) that pointed out the true road to happiness in marrying such a +man as he. In the gathering darkness she slipped her hand through his +arm. + +"I wish I could marry you, Peter," she said. + +He was fain to take what comfort he could from this expression of good- +will. If he was not the Prince Charming of her dreams, she would have +liked him to be. A little reflection on his part ought to have shown him +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 not +concerned with them. + + ............................ + +If we listen to the still, small voice of realism, intense longing is +always followed by disappointment. Nothing should have happened that +summer, and Providence should not have come disguised as the postman. +It was a sultry day in early September-which is to say that it was +comparatively cool--a blue day, with occasional great drops of rain +spattering on the brick walk. And Honora was reclining on the hall sofa, +reading about Mr. Ibbetson and his duchess, when she perceived the +postman's grey uniform and smiling face on the far side of the screen +door. He greeted her cordially, and gave her a single letter for Aunt +Mary, 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 and +glanced at Honora, who was deep in her book once more. And in Honora's +brain, 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 to +Ibbetson. Was she not, too, a prisoner. And how often, during the +summer days and nights, had she listened to the chimes of the Pilgrim +Church near by? + + "One, two, three, four! + One, two, three, four!" + +After Uncle Tom had watered his flowers that evening, Aunt Mary followed +him upstairs and locked the door of their room behind her. Silently she +put 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 is +right." + +"Well, Mary, we've had her for seventeen years. We ought to be willing +to spare her for--how many months?" + +"Nine," said Aunt Mary, promptly. She had counted them. "And Eleanor +says she will be home for two weeks at Christmas. Seventeen years! It +seems only yesterday when we brought her home, Tom. It was just about +this time of day, and she was asleep in your arms, and Bridget opened the +door for us." Aunt Mary looked out of the window. "And do you remember +how she used 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 at +Christmas. Nine months in eighteen years." + +"I suppose we ought to be very thankful," said Aunt Mary. "But, Tom, the +time is coming soon--" + +"Tut tut," exclaimed Uncle Tom. He turned, and his eyes beheld a work of +art. 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 with +much ceremony on an anniversary morning. He pretended not to notice it, +but Aunt Mary's eyes were too quick. She seized a photograph on her +bureau, 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 the +sight of Catherine standing respectfully in the hall, and of Honora, in +the red sash, making the courtesy the old woman had taught her. + +Honora recalled afterwards that Uncle Tom joked even more than usual that +evening at dinner. But it was Aunt Mary who asked her, at length, how +she would like to go to boarding-school. Such was the matter-of-fact +manner in 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 +did not stop to reflect that it was the rarest of occurrences for Aunt +Mary to spill the coffee. + +"Your Cousin Eleanor has invited you to go this winter with Edith and +Mary to Sutcliffe." + +Sutcliffe! No need to tell Honora what Sutcliffe was--her cousins had +talked of little else during the past winter; and shown, if the truth be +told, just a little commiseration for Honora. Sutcliffe was not only a +famous girls' school, Sutcliffe was the world--that world which, since +her earliest remembrances, she had been longing to see and know. In a +desperate attempt to realize what had happened to her, she found herself +staring hard at the open china closet, at Aunt Mary's best gold dinner +set 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 the rare occasions Aunt Mary entertained, the little dining room was +transformed by it and the Leffingwell silver into a glorified and +altogether 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 that +school before Cousin Eleanor's letter came, "Miss Turner insists upon +hard 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 +she always had, but tears were shining in her eyes. Young men and +chocolate cake! What were these privations compared to that magic word +Change? Suddenly she rose, and flung her arms about Uncle Tom's neck and +kissed his 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 it +won't be for long--will it? Only until next spring." + +"Until next summer, I believe," replied Aunt Mary, gently; "June is a +summer month-isn't it, Tom?" + +"It will be a summer month without question next year," answered Uncle +Tom, enigmatically. + +It has been remarked that that day was sultry, and a fine rain was now +washing 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, life +proceeded as on any other of a thousand rainy nights. The lamps were +lighted 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, +if you tried until to-morrow morning, you never could guess what has +happened." + +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--to boarding- +school. To Sutcliffe, on the Hudson, with Edith and Mary. Aren't you +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 the +parlour, 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 come +back 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 of +contrition. She could not remember the time when she had been away from +Peter, 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 and +Uncle Tom and Catherine, and who somehow embodied them all. Peter, the +eternally dependable. + +She found it natural that the light should be temporarily removed from +his firmament while she should be at boarding-school, and yet in the +tenderness of her heart she pitied him. She put her hands impulsively +upon his shoulders as he stood looking at her with that queer expression +which he believed to be a smile. + +"Peter, you dear old thing, indeed I shall miss you! I don't know what +I shall do without you, and I'll write to you every single week." + +Gently he disengaged her arms. They were standing under that which, for +courtesy's sake, had always been called the chandelier. It was in the +centre of the parlour, and Uncle Tom always covered it with holly and +mistletoe at Christmas. + +"Why do you say I'll never come back?" asked Honora. "Of course I shall +come back, and live here all the rest of my life." + +Peter shook his head slowly. He had recovered something of his customary +quizzical manner. + +"The East is a strange country," he said. "The first thing we know +you'll be marrying one of those people we read about, with more millions +than there 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, +I shan't see any but girls at Sutcliffe. I could only see you for a few +minutes once a week if you were there. And in the second place, it isn't +exactly--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 they +were different from the people we know here. Comparisons, as Shakespeare +said, are odorous." + +"Honora," he declared, still shaking his head, "you're a fraud, but I +can'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 the +puffing of the trains in the cinder-covered valley to the southward, but +the 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 of +the days that followed. No sooner was Uncle Tom out of the house in the +morning than Anne Rory marched into the sitting-room and took command, +and turned it, into a dressmaking establishment. Anne Rory, who deserves +more 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 Mary +did,--she would tell you of her own accord who gave their servants enough +to eat, and who didn't. Anne Rory was a sort of inquisition all by +herself, and would have made a valuable chief of police. The reputations +of certain elderly gentlemen of wealth might have remained to this day +intact had it not been for her; she had a heaven-sent knack of +discovering peccadilloes. Anne Rory knew the gentlemen by sight, +and the gentlemen did not know Anne Rory. Uncle Tom she held to be +somewhere in the calendar of the saints. + +There is not time, alas, to linger over Anne Rory or the new histories +which she whispered to Aunt Mary when Honora was out of the room. +At last the eventful day of departure arrived. Honora's new trunk-- +her first--was packed by Aunt Mary's own hands, the dainty clothes and +the dresses folded in tissue paper, while old Catherine stood sniffing +by. After dinner--sign of a great occasion--a carriage came from +Braintree's Livery Stable, and Uncle Tom held the horses while the driver +carried out the trunk and strapped it on. Catherine, Mary Ann, and +Bridget, all weeping, were kissed good-by, and off they went through +the dusk to the station. Not the old Union Depot, with its wooden sheds, +where Honora had gone so often to see the Hanburys off, that grimy +gateway to the fairer regions of the earth. This new station, of brick +and stone and glass and tiles, would hold an army corps with ease. And +when they alighted at the carriage entrance, a tall figure came forward +out of the shadow. It was Peter, and he had a package under his arm. +Peter checked Honora's trunk, and Peter had got the permission--through +Judge Brice--which enabled them all to pass through the grille and down +the long walk beside which the train was standing. + +They entered that hitherto mysterious conveyance, a sleeping-car, +and spoke to old Mrs. Stanley, who was going East to see her married +daughter, and who had gladly agreed to take charge of Honora. Afterwards +they stood on the platform, but in spite of the valiant efforts of Uncle +Tom and Peter, conversation was a mockery. + +"Honora," said Aunt Mary, "don't forget that your trunk key is in the +little pocket on the left side of your bag." + +"No, Aunt Mary." + +"And your little New Testament at the bottom. And your lunch is arranged +in three packages. And don't forget to ask Cousin Eleanor about the +walking shoes, and to give her my note." + +Cries reverberated under the great glass dome, and trains pulled out with +deafening roars. Honora had a strange feeling, as of pressure from +within, that caused her to take deep breaths of the smoky air. She but +half heard what was being said to her: she wished that the train would +go, and at the same time she had a sudden, surprising, and fierce longing +to stay. She had been able to eat scarcely a mouthful of that festal +dinner which Bridget had spent the afternoon in preparing, comprised +wholly of forbidden dishes of her childhood, for which Bridget and Aunt +Mary were justly famed. Such is the irony of life. Visions of one of +Aunt Mary's rare lunch-parties and of a small girl peeping covetously +through a crack in the dining-room door, and of the gold china set, +rose before her. But she could not eat. + +"Bread and jam and tea at Miss Turner's," Uncle Tom had said, and she had +tried to smile at him. + +And now they were standing on the platform, and the train might start at +any moment. + +"I trust you won't get like the New Yorkers, Honora," said Aunt Mary. +"Do you remember how stiff they were, Tom?" She was still in the habit +of referring to that memorable trip when they had brought Honora home. +"And they say now that they hold their heads higher than ever." + +"That," said Uncle Tom, gravely, "is a local disease, and comes from +staring at the tall buildings." + +"Uncle Tom!" + +Peter presented the parcel under his arm. It was a box of candy, and +very heavy, on which much thought had been spent. + +"They are some of the things you like," he said, when he had returned +from 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 evident +relish, "right good doctah--Doctah Lov'ring." + +Even Aunt Mary laughed. + +"Peter," asked Honora, "can't you get Judge Brice to send you on to New +York this winter on law business? Then you could come up to Sutcliffe to +see me." + +"I'm afraid of Miss Turner," declared Peter. + +"Oh, she wouldn't mind you," exclaimed Honora. "I could say you were an +uncle. It would be almost true. And perhaps she would let you take me +down to New York for a matinee." + +"And how about my ready-made clothes?" he said, looking down at her. He +had never forgotten that. + +Honora laughed. + +"You don't seem a bit sorry that I'm going," she replied, a little +breathlessly. "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 and +frail she was! Somehow Honora had never realized it in all her life +before. + +"Good-by, darling, and remember to put on your thick clothes on the cool +days, and write when you get to New York." + +Then it was Uncle Tom's turn. He gave her his usual vigorous hug and +kiss. + +"It won't be long until Christmas," he whispered, and was gone, helping +Aunt 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't +think it would be so hard--" + +He held out his hand, but she ignored it. Before he realized what had +happened to him she had drawn his face to hers, kissed it, and was +pushing him off the train. Then she watched from the, platform the three +receding figures in the yellow smoky light until the car slipped out from +under the roof into the blackness of the night. Some faint, premonitory +divination 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 +of them, all three, as one, a human trinity in which her faith had never +been betrayed. She felt a warm moisture on her cheeks, and realized that +she was crying with the first real sorrow of her life. + +She was leaving them--for what? Honora did not know. There had been +nothing imperative in Cousin Eleanor's letter. She need not have gone +if she had not wished. Something within herself, she felt, was impelling +her. And it is curious to relate that, in her mind, going to school had +little or nothing to do with her journey. She had the feeling of faring +forth into the world, and she had known all along that it was destined +she should. What was the cause of this longing to break the fetters and +fly away? fetters of love, they seemed to her now--and were. And the +world which she had seen afar, filled with sunlit palaces, seemed very +dark 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 of +Peter'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 her +slightest desires and caprices. Marrons glaces, and Langtrys, and +certain chocolates which had received the stamp of her approval--and she +could not so much as eat one! The porter made the berths. And there had +been a time when she had asked nothing more of fate than to travel in a +sleeping-car! Far into the night she lay wide awake, dry-eyed, watching +the lamp-lit streets of the little towns they passed, or staring at the +cornfields and pastures in the darkness; thinking of the home she had +left, perhaps forever, and wondering whether they were sleeping there; +picturing them to-morrow at breakfast without her, and Uncle Tom leaving +for the bank, Aunt Mary going through the silent rooms alone, and dear +old Catherine haunting the little chamber where she had slept for +seventeen years--almost her lifetime. A hundred vivid scenes of her +childhood came back, and familiar objects oddly intruded themselves; +the red and green lambrequin on the parlour mantel--a present many years +ago from Cousin Eleanor; the what-not, with its funny curly legs, and the +bare spot near the lock on the door of the cake closet in the dining +room! + +Youth, however, has its recuperative powers. The next day the excitement +of 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 dining +car. The September dusk was made lurid by belching steel-furnaces that +reddened the heavens; and later, when she went to bed, sharp air and +towering contours told her of the mountains. Mountains which her great- +grandfather had crossed on horse back, with that very family silver in +his saddle-bags which shone on Aunt Mary's table. And then--she awoke +with the light shining in her face, and barely had time to dress before +the conductor was calling out "Jersey City." + +Once more the morning, and with it new and wonderful sensations that +dispelled her sorrows; the ferry, the olive-green river rolling in the +morning sun, alive with dodging, hurrying craft, each bent upon its +destination with an energy, relentlessness, and selfishness of purpose +that fascinated Honora. Each, with its shrill, protesting whistle, +seemed to say: "My business is the most important. Make way for me." +And yet, through them all, towering, stately, imperturbable, a great +ocean steamer glided slowly towards the bay, by very might and majesty +holding her way serene 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 the pulse of the world's artery. That irksome sense +of spectatorship seemed to fly, and she was part and parcel now of the +great, moving things, with sure pinions with which to soar. Standing +rapt upon the forward deck of the ferry, she saw herself, not an atom, +but one whose going and coming was a thing of consequence. It seemed but +a simple step to the deck of that steamer when she, too, would be +travelling to the other side of the world, and the journey one of the +small incidents of life. + +The ferry bumped into its slip, the windlasses sang loudly as they took +up the chains, the gates folded back, and Honora was forced with the +crowd along the bridge-like passage to the right. Suddenly she saw +Cousin Eleanor and the girls awaiting her. + +"Honora," said Edith, when the greetings were over and they were all four +in the carriage, which was making its way slowly across the dirty and +irregularly paved open space to a narrow street that opened between two +saloons, "Honora, you don't mean to say that Anne Rory made that street +dress? Mother, I believe it's better-looking than the one I got at +Bremer'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 from +the 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 colour +in 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 first time by an ambitious young lady who had never been out of St. +Louis! The trimly appointed vehicles, the high-stepping horses, the +glittering shops, the well-dressed women and well-groomed men--all had an +esprit de corps which she found inspiring. On such a morning, and amidst +such a scene, she felt that there was no limit to the possibilities of +life. + +Until this year, Cousin Eleanor had been a conservative in the matter of +hotels, when she had yielded to Edith's entreaties to go to one of the +"new ones." Hotels, indeed, that revolutionized transient existence. +This one, on the Avenue, had a giant in a long blue livery coat who +opened their carriage door, and a hall in yellow and black onyx, and +maids and valets. After breakfast, when Honora sat down to write to Aunt +Mary, she described the suite of rooms in which they lived,--the brass +beds, the electric night lamps, the mahogany French furniture, the heavy +carpets, and even the white-tiled bathroom. There was a marvellous +arrangement in the walls with which Edith was never tired of playing, +a circular plate covered with legends of every conceivable want, from a +newspaper to a needle and thread and a Scotch whiskey highball. + +At breakfast, more stimulants--of a mental nature, of course. Solomon in +all his glory had never broken eggs in such a dining room. It had onyx +pillars, too, and gilt furniture, and table after table of the whitest +napery stretched from one end of it to the other. The glass and silver +was all of a special pattern, and an obsequious waiter handed Honora a +menu in a silver frame, with a handle. One side of the menu was in +English, and the other in French. All around them were well-dressed, +well-fed, prosperous-looking people, talking and laughing in subdued +tones 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- +deferred inheritance. + +The mad excitement of that day in New York is a faint memory now, +so much has Honora lived since then. We descendants of rigid Puritans, +of pioneer tobacco-planters and frontiersmen, take naturally to a luxury +such as the world has never seen--as our right. We have abolished kings, +in order that as many of us as possible may abide in palaces. In one day +Honora forgot the seventeen years spent in the "little house under the +hill," as though these had never been. Cousin Eleanor, with a delightful +sense of wrong-doing, yielded to the temptation to adorn her; and the +saleswomen, who knew Mrs. Hanbury, made indiscreet-remarks. Such a +figure and such a face, and just enough of height! Two new gowns were +ordered, to be tried on at Sutcliffe, and as many hats, and an ulster, +and heaven knows what else. Memory fails. + +In the evening they went to a new comic opera, and it is the music of +that which brings back the day most vividly to Honora's mind. + +In the morning they took an early train to Sutcliffe Manors, on the +Hudson. It is an historic place. First of all, after leaving the +station, you climb through the little town clinging to the hillside; and +Honora was struck by the quaint houses and shops which had been places of +barter before the Revolution. The age of things appealed to her. It was +a brilliant day at the very end of September, the air sharp, and here and +there a creeper had been struck crimson. Beyond the town, on the slopes, +were other new sights to stimulate the imagination: country houses--not +merely houses in the country, but mansions--enticingly hidden among great +trees in a way to whet Honora's curiosity as she pictured to herself the +blissful quality of the life which their owners must lead. Long, curving +driveways led up to the houses from occasional lodges; and once, as +though to complete the impression, a young man and two women, superbly +mounted, came trotting out of one of these driveways, talking and +laughing gayly. Honora took a good look at the man. He was not +handsome, but had, in fact, a distinguished and haunting ugliness. +The girls were straight-featured and conventional to the last degree. + +Presently they came to the avenue of elms that led up to the long, low +buildings of the school. + +Little more will be necessary, in the brief account of Honora's life at +boarding-school, than to add an humble word of praise on the excellence +of Miss Turner's establishment. That lady, needless to say, did not +advertise in the magazines, or issue a prospectus. Parents were more or +less in the situation of the candidates who desired the honour and +privilege of whitewashing Tom Sawyer's fence. If you were a parent, +and were allowed to confide your daughter to Miss Turner, instead of +demanding a prospectus, you gave thanks to heaven, and spoke about it to +your friends. + +The life of the young ladies, of course, was regulated on the strictest +principles. Early rising, prayers, breakfast, studies; the daily walk, +rain or shine, under the watchful convoy of Miss Hood, the girls in +columns of twos; tennis on the school court, or skating on the school +pond. Cotton Mather himself could not have disapproved of the Sundays, +nor of the discourse of the elderly Doctor Moale (which you heard if you +were not a Presbyterian), although the reverend gentleman was distinctly +Anglican in appearance and manners. Sometimes Honora felt devout, and +would follow the service with the utmost attention. Her religion came +in waves. On the Sundays when the heathen prevailed she studied the +congregation, grew to distinguish the local country families; and, if the +truth must be told, watched for several Sundays for that ugly yet +handsome 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 of +Miss Turner's school could not very well have been mentioned in it. The +English language, it is to be feared, is not quite flexible enough to +mention this secret with delicacy. Did Honora know it? Who can say? +Self-respecting young ladies do not talk about such things, and Honora +was 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 window +of an express train. There was a Glee Club: there were dances, and +private theatricals in Mrs. Dwyer's new house, in which it was imperative +that Honora should take part. There was no such thing as getting up for +breakfast, and once she did not see Uncle Tom for two whole days. +He asked her where she was staying. It was the first Christmas she +remembered spending without Peter. His present appeared, but perhaps +it was fortunate, on the whole, that he was in Texas, trying a case. +It seemed 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 she +had Edith and Mary for company, and George, a dignified and responsible +sophomore at Harvard. + +Owing to the sudden withdrawal from school of little Louise Simpson, the +Cincinnati girl who had shared her room during the first term, Honora had +a 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 a +negative colour, and she wore it in defiance of all prevailing modes. +If you looked very hard at Susan (which few people ever did), you saw +that she had remarkable blue eyes: they were the eyes of a saint. She +was neither tall nor short, and her complexion was not all that it might +have been. In brief, Susan was one of those girls who go through a whole +term at boarding--school without any particular notice from the more +brilliant Honoras and Ethel Wings. + +In some respects, Susan was an ideal room-mate. She read the Bible every +night and morning, and she wrote many letters home. Her ruling passion, +next to religion, was order, and she took it upon herself to arrange +Honora's bureau drawers. It is needless to say that Honora accepted +these ministrations and that she found Susan's admiration an entirely +natural sentiment. Susan was self-effacing, and she enjoyed listening +to Honora's views on all topics. + +Susan, like Peter, was taken for granted. She came from somewhere, and +after 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 are +entertaining an angel unawares. One evening, early in May, when she went +up to prepare for supper she found Susan sitting in the window reading a +letter, and on the floor beside her was a photograph. Honora picked it +up. It was the picture of a large country house with many chimneys, +taken across 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 +last week. 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 seemed +much more like home to me than our house in New York, and I love it +better 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 her +letter, 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 +my cousins." + +It was foolish, it was wrong. But for the life of her Honora could not +say she was going to spend the long hot summer in St. Louis. The thought +of it had haunted her for weeks: and sometimes, when the other girls were +discussing their plans, she had left them abruptly. And now she was +aware that Susan's blue eyes were fixed upon her, and that they had a +strange and penetrating quality she had never noticed before: a certain +tenderness, an understanding that made Honora redden and turn. + +"I wish," said Susan, slowly, "that you would come and stay awhile with +me. Your home is so far away, and I don't know when I shall see you +again." + +"Oh, Susan," she murmured, "it's awfully good of you, but I'm afraid--I +couldn't." + +She walked to the window, and stood looking out for a moment at the +budding trees. Her heart was beating faster, and she was strangely +uncomfortable. + +"I really don't expect to go to the sea, Susan," she said. "You see, +my aunt and uncle are all alone in St. Louis, and I ought to go back to +them. 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 +there when he died. And people said he had an unusually brilliant +career before him. 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 before +sleep came to her that night. She wondered what it would be like to +visit at a great country house such as Silverdale, what it would be like +to live in one. It seemed a strange and cruel piece of irony on the part +of the fates that Susan, instead of Honora, should have been chosen for +such a life: Susan, who would have been quite as happy spending her +summers in St. Louis, and taking excursions in the electric cars: Susan, +who had never experienced that dreadful, vacuum-like feeling, who had no +ambitious craving to be satisfied. Mingled with her flushes of affection +for Susan was a certain queer feeling of contempt, of which Honora was +ashamed. + +Nevertheless, in the days that followed, a certain metamorphosis seemed +to 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 of Silverdale. +And, if the naked truth must be told, it was due to Silverdale that Susan +owes the honour of her first mention in those descriptive letters from +Sutcliffe, which Aunt Mary has kept to this day. + +Four days later Susan had a letter from her mother containing an +astonishing discovery. There could be no mistake,--Mrs. Holt had +brought Honora 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 have +often heard mother tell about it, and how every one on the ship noticed +you, and how Hortense cried when your aunt and uncle took you away. And +to think we have been rooming together all these months and did not know +that we were really--old friends. + +"And Honora, mother says you must come to Silverdale to pay us a visit +when 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 me your 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 it +was not until after she had posted it that she felt a sudden, sharp +regret as she thought of them in their loneliness. But the postponement +of her homecoming would only be for a fortnight at best. And she had +seen so little! + +In due time Aunt Mary's letter arrived. There was no mention of +loneliness in it, only of joy that Honora was to have the opportunity to +visit such a place as Silverdale. Aunt Mary, it seems, had seen pictures +of it long ago in a magazine of the book club, in an article concerning +one of Mrs. Holt's charities--a model home for indiscreet young women. +At the end of the year, Aunt Mary added, she had bought the number of +the magazine, because of her natural interest in Mrs. Holt on Honora's +account. Honora cried a little over that letter, but her determination +to go to Silverdale was unshaken. + +June came at last, and the end of school. The subject of Miss Turner's +annual talk was worldliness. Miss Turner saw signs, she regretted to +say, of a lowering in the ideals of American women: of a restlessness, +of a desire 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 of Maillard's chocolates, which she had in her pocket. Woman's +place, continued Miss Turner, was the home, and she hoped they would all +make good wives. She had done her best to prepare them to be such. +Independence, they would find, was only relative: no one had it +completely. And she hoped that none of her scholars would ever descend +to that base competition to outdo one's neighbours, so characteristic of +the country to-day. + +The friends, and even the enemies, were kissed good-by, with pledges of +eternal friendship. Cousin Eleanor Hanbury came for Edith and Mary, and +hoped Honora would enjoy herself at Silverdale. Dear Cousin Eleanor! +Her heart was large, and her charity unpretentious. She slipped into +Honora's fingers, 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 she +stepped on the train for New York. + +"And I am going home soon, Cousin Eleanor," replied Honora, with a little +touch of homesickness in her voice. + +"I know, dear," said Mrs. Hanbury. But there was a peculiar, almost +wistful expression on her face as she kissed Honora again, as of one who +assents to a fiction in order to humour a child. + +As the train pulled out, Ethel Wing waved to her from the midst of a +group 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. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Blessed are the ugly, for they shall not be tempted +Comparisons, as Shakespeare said, are odorous +Constitutionally honest +Conversation was a mockery +Fetters of love +He has always been too honest to make a great deal of money +Her words of comfort were as few as her silent deeds were many +How can you talk of things other people have and not want them +Immutable love in a changing, heedless, selfish world +Intense longing is always followed by disappointment +Providence is accepted by his beneficiaries as a matter of fact +Rocks to which one might cling, successful or failing +Sleep! A despised waste of time in childhood +So glad to have what other people haven't +Taking him like daily bread, to be eaten and not thought about +That magic word Change +The greatest wonders are not at the ends of the earth, but near +Why should I desire what I cannot have + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MODERN CHRONICLE, V1, BY CHURCHILL *** + +*********** This file should be named wc37w10.txt or wc37w10.zip ************ + +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, wc37w11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, wc37w10a.txt + +This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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