f the house, which were
like the laws of the Medes and Persians! And in Honora's early youth Mary
Ann, the housemaid, spent more than one painful evening writing home for
cockle shells and other articles to propitiate our princess, who rewarded
her with a winning smile and a kiss, which invariably melted the honest
girl into tears. The Queen of Scots never had a more devoted chamber
woman than old Catherine,--who would have gone to the stake with a smile
to save her little lady a single childish ill, and who spent her savings,
until severely taken to task by Aunt Mary, upon objects for which a
casual wish had been expressed. The saints themselves must at times have
been aweary from hearing Honora's name.

Not to speak of Christmas! Christmas in the little house was one wild
delirium of joy. The night before the festival was, to all outward
appearances, an ordinary evening, when Uncle Tom sat by the fire in his
slippers, as usual, scouting the idea that there would be any Christmas
at all. Aunt Mary sewed, and talked with maddening calmness of the news
of the day; but for Honora the air was charged with coming events of the
first magnitude. The very furniture of the little sitting-room had a
different air, the room itself wore a mysterious aspect, and the
cannel-coal fire seemed to give forth a special quality of unearthly
light.

"Is to-morrow Christmas?" Uncle Tom would exclaim. Bless me! Honora, I am
so glad you reminded me."

"Now, Uncle Tom, you knew it was Christmas all the time!"

"Kiss your uncle good night, Honora, and go right to sleep, dear,"--from
Aunt Mary.

The unconscious irony in that command of Aunt Mary's!--to go right to
sleep! Many times was a head lifted from a small pillow, straining after
the meaning of the squeaky noises that came up from below! Not Santa
Claus. Honora's belief in him had merged into a blind faith in a larger
and even more benevolent, if material providence: the kind of providence
which Mr. Meredith depicts, and which was to say to Beauchamp: "Here's
your marquise;" a particular providence which, at the proper time, gave
Uncle Tom money, and commanded, with a smile, "Buy this for Honora--she
wants it." All-sufficient reason! Soul-satisfying philosophy, to which
Honora was to cling for many years of life. It is amazing how much can be
wrung from a reluctant world by the mere belief in this kind of
providence.

Sleep came at last, in the darkest of the hours. And still in the