In autumn, and again in spring and early summer before the annual departure of the Hanbury family for the sea, the pleasant yard with its wide shade trees and its shrubbery was a land of enchantment threatened by a genie.  Black Bias, the family coachman, polishing the fat carriage horses in the stable yard, was the genie; and George the intrepid knight who, spurred by Honora, would dash in and pinch Bias in a part of his anatomy which the honest darky had never seen.  An ideal genie, for he could assume an astonishing fierceness at will.

“I’ll git you yit, Marse George!”

Had it not been for Honora, her cousins would have found the paradise in which they lived a commonplace spot, and indeed they never could realize its tremendous possibilities in her absence.  What would the Mediterranean Sea and its adjoining countries be to us unless the wanderings of Ulysses and AEneas had made them real?  And what would Cousin Eleanor’s yard have been without Honora?  Whatever there was of romance and folklore in Uncle Tom’s library Honora had extracted at an early age, and with astonishing ease had avoided that which was dry and uninteresting.  The result was a nomenclature for Aunt Eleanor’s yard, in which there was even a terra incognita wherefrom venturesome travellers never returned, but were transformed into wild beasts or monkeys.

Although they acknowledged her leadership, Edith and Mary were sorry for Honora, for they knew that if her father had lived she would have had a house and garden like theirs, only larger, and beside a blue sea where it was warm always.  Honora had told them so, and colour was lent to her assertions by the fact that their mother, when they repeated this to her, only smiled sadly, and brushed her eyes with her handkerchief.  She was even more beautiful when she did so, Edith told her,—­a remark which caused Mrs. Hanbury to scan her younger daughter closely; it smacked of Honora.

“Was Cousin Randolph handsome?” Edith demanded.  Mrs. Hanbury started, so vividly there arose before her eyes a brave and dashing figure, clad in grey English cloth, walking by her side on a sunny autumn morning in the Rue de la Paix.  Well she remembered that trip abroad with her mother, Randolph’s aunt, and how attentive he was, and showed them the best restaurants in which to dine.  He had only been in France a short time, but his knowledge of restaurants and the world in general had been amazing, and his acquaintances legion.  He had a way, which there was no resisting, of taking people by storm.

“Yes, dear,” answered Mrs. Hanbury, absently, when the child repeated the question, “he was very handsome.”

“Honora says he would have been President,” put in George.  “Of course I don’t believe it.  She said they lived in a palace by the sea in the south of France, with gardens and fountains and a lot of things like that, and princesses and princes and eunuchs—­”

“And what!” exclaimed Mrs. Hanbury, aghast.