he 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 t