r. And as a result a book called "Harold's Quest,"
by an author who shall be nameless, had come to the house. And it was
Harold who had had "a certain air of distinction."

"It isn't very kind of you to make fun of me when I pay you a
compliment," replied Honora, with dignity.

"I was naturally put out," he declared gravely, "because you said you
wouldn't marry me. But I don't intend to give up. No man who is worth his
salt ever gives up."

"You are old enough to get married now," said Honora, still considerate.

"But I am not rich enough," said Peter; "and besides, I want you."

One of the first entries in the morocco diary--which had a lock and key
to it--was a description of Honora's future husband. We cannot violate
the lock, nor steal the key from under her pillow. But this much, alas,
may be said with discretion, that he bore no resemblance to Peter Erwin.
It may be guessed, however, that he contained something of Harold, and
more of Randolph Leffingwell; and that he did not live in St. Louis.

An event of Christmas, after church, was the dinner of which Uncle Tom
and Aunt Mary and Honora partook with Cousin Eleanor Hanbury, who had
been a Leffingwell, and was a first cousin of Honora's father. Honora
loved the atmosphere of the massive, yellow stone house in Wayland
Square, with its tall polished mahogany doors and thick carpets, with its
deferential darky servants, some of whom had been the slaves of her great
uncle. To Honora, gifted with imagination, the house had an odour all its
own; a rich, clean odour significant, in later life, of wealth and luxury
and spotless housekeeping. And she knew it from top to bottom. The
spacious upper floor, which in ordinary dwellings would have been an
attic, was the realm of young George and his sisters, Edith and Mary
(Aunt Mary's namesake). Rainy Saturdays, all too brief, Honora had passed
there, when the big dolls' house in the playroom became the scene of
domestic dramas which Edith rehearsed after she went to bed, although
Mary took them more calmly. In his tenderer years, Honora even fired
George, and riots occurred which took the combined efforts of Cousin
Eleanor and Mammy Lucy to quell. It may be remarked, in passing, that
Cousin Eleanor looked with suspicion upon this imaginative gift of
Honora's, and had several serious conversations with Aunt Mary on the
subject.

It was true, in a measure, that Honora quickened to life everything she
touched, and her arri