iscontinued. Sunday, after
his pile of newspapers had religiously been disposed of, became a field
day. Indeed, it is impossible, without a twinge of pity, to behold Howard
taking root in Rivington, for we know that sooner or later he will be dug
up and transplanted. The soil was congenial. He played poker on the train
with the Rivington husbands, and otherwise got along with them famously.
And it was to him an enigma--when occasionally he allowed his thoughts to
dwell upon such trivial matters--why Honora was not equally congenial
with the wives.

There were, no doubt, interesting people in Rivington about whom many
stories could be written: people with loves and fears and anxieties and
joys, with illnesses and recoveries, with babies, but few grandchildren.
There were weddings at the little church, and burials; there were dances
at the golf club; there were Christmas trees, where most of the presents
--like Honora's--came from afar, from family centres formed in a social
period gone by; there were promotions for the heads of families, and
consequent rejoicings over increases of income; there were movings; there
were--inevitable in the ever grinding action of that remorseless law, the
survival of the fittest--commercial calamities, and the heartrending
search for new employment.

Rivington called upon Honora in vehicles of all descriptions, in
proportion to the improvidence or prosperity of the owners. And Honora
returned the calls, and joined the Sewing Circle, and the Woman's
Luncheon Club, which met for the purpose of literary discussion. In the
evenings there were little dinners of six or eight, where the men talked
business and the women house rent and groceries and gossip and the
cheapest places in New York City to buy articles of the latest fashion.
Some of them had actually built or were building houses that cost as much
as thirty thousand dollars, with the inexplicable intention of remaining
in Rivington the rest of their lives!

Honora was kind to these ladies. As we know, she was kind to everybody.
She almost allowed two or three of them to hope that they might become
her intimates, and made excursions to New York with them, and lunched in
fashionable restaurants. Their range of discussion included babies and
Robert Browning, the modern novel and the best matinee. It would be
interesting to know why she treated them, on the whole, like travellers
met by chance in a railroad station, from whom she was prese