“Come, Honora,” said her aunt.  “What’s the matter, dear?”

How could she explain to Aunt Mary that the sight of beautiful things gave her a sort of pain—­when she did not yet know it herself?  There was the massive stairway, for instance, which they ascended, softly lighted by a great leaded window of stained glass on the first landing; and the spacious bedrooms with their shining brass beds and lace spreads (another innovation which Honora resolved to adopt when she married); and at last, far above all, its deep-set windows looking out above the trees towards the park a mile to the westward, the ballroom,—­the ballroom, with its mirrors and high chandeliers, and chairs of gilt and blue set against the walls, all of which made no impression whatever upon George and Mary and Edith, but gave Honora a thrill.  No wonder that she learned to dance quickly under such an inspiration!

And how pretty Mrs. Hayden looked as she came forward to greet them and kissed Honora!  She had been Virginia Grey, and scarce had had a gown to her back when she had married the elderly Duncan Hayden, who had built her this house and presented her with a checkbook,—­a check-book which Virginia believed to be like the widow’s cruse of oil-unfailing.  Alas, those days of picnics and balls; of dinners at that recent innovation, the club; of theatre-parties and excursions to baseball games between the young men in Mrs. Hayden’s train (and all young men were) who played at Harvard or Yale or Princeton; those days were too care-free to have endured.

“Aunt Mary,” asked Honora, when they were home again in the lamplight of the little sitting-room, “why was it that Mr. Meeker was so polite to Cousin Eleanor, and asked her about my dancing instead of you?”

Aunt Mary smiled.

“Because, Honora,” she said, “because I am a person of no importance in Mr. Meeker’s eyes.”

“If I were a man,” cried Honora, fiercely, “I should never rest until I had made enough money to make Mr. Meeker wriggle.”

“Honora, come here,” said her aunt, gazing in troubled surprise at the tense little figure by the mantel.  “I don’t know what could have put such things into your head, my child.  Money isn’t everything.  In times of real trouble it cannot save one.”

“But it can save one from humiliation!” exclaimed Honora, unexpectedly.  Another sign of a peculiar precociousness, at fourteen, with which Aunt Mary was finding herself unable to cope.  “I would rather be killed than humiliated by Mr. Meeker.”

Whereupon she flew out of the room and upstairs, where old Catherine, in dismay, found her sobbing a little later.

Poor Aunt Mary!  Few people guessed the spirit which was bound up in her, aching to extend its sympathy and not knowing how, save by an unswerving and undemonstrative devotion.  Her words of comfort were as few as her silent deeds were many.

But Honora continued to go to the dancing class, where she treated Mr. Meeker with a hauteur that astonished him, amused Virginia Hayden, and perplexed Cousin Eleanor.  Mr. Meeker’s cringing soul responded, and in a month Honora was the leading spirit of the class, led the marches, and was pointed out by the little dancing master as all that a lady should be in deportment and bearing.