ly wait." Suddenly she put down her
letter, and looked at Honora.

"And you," she asked, "where are you going?"

"I don't know. Perhaps--perhaps I shall go to the sea for a while with my
cousins."

It was foolish, it was wrong. But for the life of her Honora could not
say she was going to spend the long hot summer in St. Louis. The thought
of it had haunted her for weeks: and sometimes, when the other girls were
discussing their plans, she had left them abruptly. And now she was aware
that Susan's blue eyes were fixed upon her, and that they had a strange
and penetrating quality she had never noticed before: a certain
tenderness, an understanding that made Honora redden and turn.

"I wish," said Susan, slowly, "that you would come and stay awhile with
me. Your home is so far away, and I don't know when I shall see you
again."

"Oh, Susan," she murmured, "it's awfully good of you, but I'm afraid--I
couldn't."

She walked to the window, and stood looking out for a moment at the
budding trees. Her heart was beating faster, and she was strangely
uncomfortable.

"I really don't expect to go to the sea, Susan," she said. "You see, my
aunt and uncle are all alone in St. Louis, and I ought to go back to
them. If--if my father had lived, it might have been different. He died,
and my mother, when I was little more than a year old."

Susan was all sympathy. She slipped her hand into Honora's.

"Where did he live?" she asked.

"Abroad," answered Honora. "He was consul at Nice, and had a villa there
when he died. And people said he had an unusually brilliant career before
him. My aunt and uncle brought me up, and my cousin, Mrs. Hanbury,
Edith's mother, and Mary's, sent me here to school."

Honora breathed easier after this confession, but it was long before
sleep came to her that night. She wondered what it would be like to visit
at a great country house such as Silverdale, what it would be like to
live in one. It seemed a strange and cruel piece of irony on the part of
the fates that Susan, instead of Honora, should have been chosen for such
a life: Susan, who would have been quite as happy spending her summers in
St. Louis, and taking excursions in the electric cars: Susan, who had
never experienced that dreadful, vacuum-like feeling, who had no
ambitious craving to be satisfied. Mingled with her flushes of affection
for Susan was a certain queer feeling of contempt, of which Honora was
ashamed.

Nevertheless, in