“I should like to have beautiful pictures, Honora.”

“I don’t like Mr. Dwyer,” declared Honora, abruptly.

“You mustn’t say that, Honora,” was Aunt Mary’s reproof.  “Mr. Dwyer is an upright, public-spirited man, and he thinks a great deal of your Uncle Tom.”

“I can’t help it, Aunt Mary,” said Honora.  “I think he enjoys being —­well, being able to do things for a man like Uncle Tom.”

Neither Aunt Mary nor Honora guessed what a subtle criticism this was of Mr. Dwyer.  Aunt Mary was troubled and puzzled; and she began to speculate (not for the first time) why the Lord had given a person with so little imagination a child like Honora to bring up in the straight and narrow path.

“When I go on Sunday afternoons with Uncle Tom to see Mr. Dwyer’s pictures,” Honora persisted, “I always feel that he is so glad to have what other people haven’t or he wouldn’t have any one to show them to.”

Aunt Mary shook her head.  Once she had given her loyal friendship, such faults as this became as nothing.

“And when” said Honora, “when Mrs. Dwyer has dinner-parties for celebrated people who come here, why does she invite you in to see the table?”

“Out of kindness, Honora.  Mrs. Dwyer knows that I enjoy looking at beautiful things.”

“Why doesn’t she invite you to the dinners?” asked Honora, hotly.  “Our family is just as good as Mrs. Dwyer’s.”

The extent of Aunt Mary’s distress was not apparent.

“You are talking nonsense, my child,” she said.  “All my friends know that I am not a person who can entertain distinguished people, and that I do not go out, and that I haven’t the money to buy evening dresses.  And even if I had,” she added, “I haven’t a pretty neck, so it’s just as well.”

A philosophy distinctly Aunt Mary’s.

Uncle Tom, after he had listened without comment that evening to her account of this conversation, was of the opinion that to take Honora to task for her fancies would be waste of breath; that they would right themselves as she grew up.

“I’m afraid it’s inheritance, Tom,” said Aunt Mary, at last.  “And if so, it ought to be counteracted.  We’ve seen other signs of it.  You know Honora has little or no idea of the value of money—­or of its ownership.”

“She sees little enough of it,” Uncle Tom remarked with a smile.

“Tom.”

“Well.”

“Sometimes I think I’ve done wrong not to dress her more simply.  I’m afraid it’s given the child a taste for—­for self-adornment.”

“I once had a fond belief that all women possessed such a taste,” said Uncle Tom, with a quizzical look at his own exception.  “To tell you the truth, I never classed it as a fault.”

“Then I don’t see why you married me,” said Aunt Mary—­a periodical remark of hers.  “But, Tom, I do wish her to appear as well as the other children, and (Aunt Mary actually blushed) the child has good looks.”