"I would rather be killed than
humiliated by Mr. Meeker."

Whereupon she flew out of the room and upstairs, where old Catherine, in
dismay, found her sobbing a little later.

Poor Aunt Mary! Few people guessed the spirit which was bound up in her,
aching to extend its sympathy and not knowing how, save by an unswerving
and undemonstrative devotion. Her words of comfort were as few as her
silent deeds were many.

But Honora continued to go to the dancing class, where she treated Mr.
Meeker with a hauteur that astonished him, amused Virginia Hayden, and
perplexed Cousin Eleanor. Mr. Meeker's cringing soul responded, and in a
month Honora was the leading spirit of the class, led the marches, and
was pointed out by the little dancing master as all that a lady should be
in deportment and bearing.

This treatment, which succeeded so well in Mr. Meeker's case, Honora had
previously applied to others of his sex. Like most people with a future,
she began young. Of late, for instance, Mr. George Hanbury had shown a
tendency to regard her as his personal property; for George had a
high-handed way with him,--boys being an enigma to his mother. Even in
those days he had a bullet head and a red face and square shoulders, and
was rather undersized for his age--which was Honora's.

Needless to say, George did not approve of the dancing class; and let it
be known, both by words and deeds, that he was there under protest. Nor
did he regard with favour Honora's triumphal progress, but sat in a
corner with several congenial spirits whose feelings ranged from scorn to
despair, commenting in loud whispers upon those of his sex to whom the
terpsichorean art came more naturally. Upon one Algernon Cartwright, for
example, whose striking likeness to the Van Dyck portrait of a young king
had been more than once commented upon by his elders, and whose velveteen
suits enhanced the resemblance. Algernon, by the way, was the favourite
male pupil of Mr. Meeker; and, on occasions, Algernon and Honora were
called upon to give exhibitions for the others, the sight of which filled
George with contemptuous rage. Algernon danced altogether too much with
Honora,--so George informed his cousin.

The simple result of George's protests was to make Honora dance with
Algernon the more, evincing, even at this period of her career, a
commendable determination to resent dictation. George should have lived
in the Middle Ages, when the spirit of modern American