eems, 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 CH