l was unnatural. Why
should the hour of departure from such a harbour of peace be celebrated?

She was standing beside her husband in the little parlour, while carriage
doors slammed in the dusk outside; while one by one--a pageant of the
past which she was leaving forever the friends of her childhood came and
went. Laughter and tears and kisses! And then, in no time at all, she
found herself changing for the journey in the "little house under the
hill." There, locked up in the little desk Cousin Eleanor had given her
long ago, was the unfinished manuscript of that novel written at fever
heat during those summer days in which she had sought to escape from a
humdrum existence. And now--she had escaped. Aunt Mary, helpful under the
most trying circumstances, was putting her articles in a bag, the
initials on which she did not recognize--H. L. S.--Honora Leffingwell
Spence; while old Catherine, tearful and inefficient, knelt before her,
fumbling at her shoes. Honora, bending over, took the face of the
faithful old servant and kissed it.

"Don't feel badly, Catherine," she said; "I'll be coming back often to
see you, and you will be coming to see me."

"Will ye, darlint? The blessing of God be on you for those words--and you
to be such a fine lady! It always was a fine lady ye were, with such a
family and such a bringin' up. And now ye've married a rich man, as is
right and proper. If it's rich as Croesus he was, he'd be none too good
for you."

"Catherine," said Aunt Mary, reprovingly, "what ideas you put into the
child's head!"

"Sure, Miss Mary," cried Catherine, "it's always the great lady she was,
and she a wee bit of a thing. And wasn't it yerself, Miss Mary, that
dressed her like a princess?"

Then came the good-bys--the real ones. Uncle Tom, always the friend of
young people, was surrounded by a group of bridesmaids in the hall. She
clung to him. And Peter, who had the carriage ready. What would her
wedding have been without Peter? As they drove towards the station, his
was the image that remained persistently in her mind, bareheaded on the
sidewalk in the light of the carriage lamps. The image of struggle.

She had married Prosperity. A whimsical question, that shocked her,
irresistibly presented itself: was it not Prosperity that she had
promised to love, honour, and obey?

It must not be thought that Honora was by any means discontented with her
Prosperity. He was new--that was all. Howard looked new. Bu