Needless to enumerate them.  The whole world, as we know, was in a conspiracy to spoil Honora.  The Dwyers, the Cartwrights, the Haydens, the Brices, the Ishams, and I know not how many others had sent their tributes, and Honora’s second cousins, the Hanburys, from the family mansion behind the stately elms of Wayland Square—­of which something anon.  A miniature mahogany desk, a prayer-book and hymnal which the Dwyers had brought home from New York, endless volumes of a more secular and (to Honora) entrancing nature; roller skates; skates for real ice, when it should appear in the form of sleet on the sidewalks; a sled; humbler gifts from Bridget, Mary Ann, and Catherine, and a wonderful coat, with hat to match, of a certain dark green velvet.  When Aunt Mary appeared, an hour or so later, Honora was surveying her magnificence in the glass.

“Oh, Aunt Mary!” she cried, with her arms tightly locked around her aunt’s neck, “how lovely!  Did you send all the way to New York for it?”

“No, Honora,” said her aunt, “it didn’t come from New York.”  Aunt Mary did not explain that this coat had been her one engrossing occupation for six weeks, at such times when Honora was out or tucked away safely in bed.

Perhaps Honora’s face fell a little.  Aunt Mary scanned it rather anxiously.

“Does that cause you to like it any less, Honora?” she asked.

“Aunt Mary!” exclaimed Honora, in a tone of reproval.  And added after a little, “I suppose Mademoiselle made it.”

“Does it make any difference who made it, Honora?”

“Oh, no indeed, Aunt Mary.  May I wear it to Cousin Eleanor’s to-day?”

“I gave it to you to wear, Honora.”

Not in Honora’s memory was there a Christmas breakfast during which Peter Erwin did not appear, bringing gifts.  Peter Erwin, of whom we caught a glimpse doing an errand for Uncle Tom in the bank.  With the complacency of the sun Honora was wont to regard this most constant of her satellites.  Her awakening powers of observation had discovered him in bondage, and in bondage he had been ever since:  for their acquaintance had begun on the first Sunday afternoon after Honora’s arrival in St. Louis at the age of eighteen months.  It will be remembered that Honora was even then a coquette, and as she sat in her new baby-carriage under the pear tree, flirted outrageously with Peter, who stood on one foot from embarrassment.

“Why, Peter,” Uncle Tom had said slyly, “why don’t you kiss her?”

That kiss had been Peter’s seal of service.  And he became, on Sunday afternoons, a sort of understudy for Catherine.  He took an amazing delight in wheeling Honora up and down the yard, and up and down the sidewalk.  Brunhilde or Queen Elizabeth never wielded a power more absolute, nor had an adorer more satisfactory; and of all his remarkable talents, none were more conspicuous than his abilities to tell a story and to choose a present.  Emancipated from the perambulator, Honora would watch for him at the window, and toddle to the gate to meet him, a gentleman-in-waiting whose zeal, however arduous, never flagged.