old Catherine stood sniffing by.
After dinner--sign of a great occasion--a carriage came from Braintree's
Livery Stable, and Uncle Tom held the horses while the driver carried out
the trunk and strapped it on. Catherine, Mary Ann, and Bridget, all
weeping, were kissed good-by, and off they went through the dusk to the
station. Not the old Union Depot, with its wooden sheds, where Honora had
gone so often to see the Hanburys off, that grimy gateway to the fairer
regions of the earth. This new station, of brick and stone and glass and
tiles, would hold an army corps with ease. And when they alighted at the
carriage entrance, a tall figure came forward out of the shadow. It was
Peter, and he had a package under his arm. Peter checked Honora's trunk,
and Peter had got the permission--through Judge Brice--which enabled them
all to pass through the grille and down the long walk beside which the
train was standing.

They entered that hitherto mysterious conveyance, a sleeping-car, and
spoke to old Mrs. Stanley, who was going East to see her married
daughter, and who had gladly agreed to take charge of Honora. Afterwards
they stood on the platform, but in spite of the valiant efforts of Uncle
Tom and Peter, conversation was a mockery.

"Honora," said Aunt Mary, "don't forget that your trunk key is in the
little pocket on the left side of your bag."

"No, Aunt Mary."

"And your little New Testament at the bottom. And your lunch is arranged
in three packages. And don't forget to ask Cousin Eleanor about the
walking shoes, and to give her my note."

Cries reverberated under the great glass dome, and trains pulled out with
deafening roars. Honora had a strange feeling, as of pressure from
within, that caused her to take deep breaths of the smoky air. She but
half heard what was being said to her: she wished that the train would
go, and at the same time she had a sudden, surprising, and fierce longing
to stay. She had been able to eat scarcely a mouthful of that festal
dinner which Bridget had spent the afternoon in preparing, comprised
wholly of forbidden dishes of her childhood, for which Bridget and Aunt
Mary were justly famed. Such is the irony of life. Visions of one of Aunt
Mary's rare lunch-parties and of a small girl peeping covetously through
a crack in the dining-room door, and of the gold china set, rose before
her. But she could not eat.

"Bread and jam and tea at Miss Turner's," Uncle Tom had said, and she had
t