ve heard so much of it, and
I should like to write my aunt about it. She is interested in the work
you are doing, and she has kept a magazine with an article in it, and a
picture of the institution."

"Dear me!" exclaimed the lady, now visibly pleased. "It is a very modest
little work, my dear. I had no idea that--out in St. Louis--that the
beams of my little candle had carried so far. Indeed you shall see it,
Honora. We will go down the first thing in the morning."

Mrs. Robert, who had been sitting on the other side of the room, rose
abruptly and came towards them. There was something very like a smile on
her face,--although it wasn't really a smile--as she bent over and kissed
her mother-in-law on the cheek.

"I am glad to hear you are interested in--charities, Miss Leffingwell,"
she said.

Honora's face grew warm.

"I have not so far had very much to do with them, I am afraid," she
answered.

"How should she?" demanded Mrs. Holt. "Gwendolen, you're not going up
already?"

"I have some letters to write," said Mrs. Robert.

"Gwen has helped me immeasurably," said Mrs. Holt, looking after the tall
figure of her daughter-in-law, "but she has a curious, reserved
character. You have to know her, my dear. She is not at all like Susan,
for instance."

Honora awoke the next morning to a melody, and lay for some minutes in a
delicious semi-consciousness, wondering where she was. Presently she
discovered that the notes were those of a bird on a tree immediately
outside of her window--a tree of wonderful perfection, the lower branches
of which swept the ground. Other symmetrical trees, of many varieties,
dotted a velvet lawn, which formed a great natural terrace above the
forested valley of Silver Brook. On the grass, dew-drenched cobwebs
gleamed in the early sun, and the breeze that stirred the curtains was
charged with the damp, fresh odours of the morning. Voices caught her
ear, and two figures appeared in the distance. One she recognized as Mr.
Holt, and the other was evidently a gardener. The gilt clock on the
mantel pointed to a quarter of seven.

It is far too late in this history to pretend that Honora was, by
preference, an early riser, and therefore it must have been the
excitement caused by her surroundings that made her bathe and dress with
alacrity that morning. A housemaid was dusting the stairs as she
descended into the empty hall. She crossed the lawn, took a path through
the trees that bordered it