the day ever come when she,
too, would depart for the bright places of the earth? Sometimes, when she
looked in the mirror, she was filled with a fierce belief in a destiny to
sit in the high seats, to receive homage and dispense bounties, to
discourse with great intellects, to know London and Paris and the marts
and centres of the world as her father had. To escape--only to escape
from the prison walls of a humdrum existence, and to soar!

Let us, if we can, reconstruct an August day when all (or nearly all) of
Honora's small friends were gone eastward to the mountains or the
seaside. In "the little house under the hill," the surface of which was a
hot slate roof, Honora would awake about seven o'clock to find old
Catherine bending over her in a dun-coloured calico dress, with the light
fiercely beating against the closed shutters that braved it so
unflinchingly throughout the day.

"The birds are before ye, Miss Honora, honey, and your uncle waterin' his
roses this half-hour."

Uncle Tom was indeed an early riser. As Honora dressed (Catherine
assisting as at a ceremony), she could see him, in his seersucker coat,
bending tenderly over his beds; he lived enveloped in a peace which has
since struck wonder to Honora's soul. She lingered in her dressing, even
in those days, falling into reveries from which Catherine gently and
deferentially aroused her; and Uncle Tom would be carving the beefsteak
and Aunt Mary pouring the coffee when she finally arrived in the dining
room to nibble at one of Bridget's unforgettable rolls or hot biscuits.
Uncle Tom had his joke, and at quarter-past eight precisely he would kiss
Aunt Mary and walk to the corner to wait for the ambling horse-car that
was to take him to the bank. Sometimes Honora went to the corner with
him, and he waved her good-by from the platform as he felt in his pocket
for the nickel that was to pay his fare.

When Honora returned, Aunt Mary had donned her apron, and was
industriously aiding Mary Ann to wash the dishes and maintain the
customary high polish on her husband's share of the Leffingwell silver
which, standing on the side table, shot hither and thither rays of green
light that filtered through the shutters into the darkened room. The
child partook of Aunt Mary's pride in that silver, made for a Kentucky
great-grandfather Leffingwell by a famous Philadelphia silversmith
three-quarters of a century before. Honora sighed.

"What's the matter, Honora?" ask