“I know,” said George, contemptuously, “she got that out of the Arabian Nights.”  But this suspicion did not prevent him, the next time Honora regaled them with more adventures of the palace by the summer seas, from listening with a rapt attention.  No two tales were ever alike.  His admiration for Honora did not wane, but increased.  It differed from that of his sisters, however, in being a tribute to her creative faculties, while Edith’s breathless faith pictured her cousin as having passed through as many adventures as Queen Esther.  George paid her a characteristic compliment, but chivalrously drew her aside to bestow it.  He was not one to mince matters.

“You’re a wonder, Honora,” he said.  “If I could lie like that, I wouldn’t want a pony.”

He was forced to draw back a little from the heat of the conflagration he had kindled.

“George Hanbury,” she cried, “don’t you ever speak to me again!  Never!  Do you understand?”

It was thus that George, at some cost, had made a considerable discovery which, for the moment, shook even his scepticism.  Honora believed it all herself.

Cousin Eleanor Hanbury was a person, or personage, who took a deep and abiding interest in her fellow-beings, and the old clothes of the Hanbury family went unerringly to the needy whose figures most resembled those of the original owners.  For Mrs. Hanbury had a wide but comparatively unknown charity list.  She was, secretly, one of the many providence which Honora accepted collectively, although it is by no means certain whether Honora, at this period, would have thanked her cousin for tuition at Miss Farmer’s school, and for her daily tasks at French and music concerning which Aunt Mary was so particular.  On the memorable Christmas morning when, arrayed in green velvet, she arrived with her aunt and uncle for dinner in Wayland Square, Cousin Eleanor drew Aunt Mary into her bedroom and shut the door, and handed her a sealed envelope.  Without opening it, but guessing with much accuracy its contents, Aunt Mary handed it back.

“You are doing too much, Eleanor,” she said.

Mrs. Hanbury was likewise a direct person.

“I will, take it back on one condition, Mary.  If you will tell me that Tom has finished paying Randolph’s debts.”

Mrs. Leffingwell was silent.

“I thought not,” said Mrs. Hanbury.  “Now Randolph was my own cousin, and I insist.”

Aunt Mary turned over the envelope, and there followed a few moments’ silence, broken only by the distant clamour of tin horns and other musical instruments of the season.

“I sometimes think, Mary, that Honora is a little like Randolph, and-Mrs. Randolph.  Of course, I did not know her.”

“Neither did I,” said Aunt Mary.

“Mary,” said Mrs. Hanbury, again, “I realize how you worked to make the child that velvet coat.  Do you think you ought to dress her that way?”

“I don’t see why she shouldn’t be as well dressed as the children of my friends, Eleanor.”