he 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