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