It is simply impossible to give any adequate notion of the industry of the days that followed.  No sooner was Uncle Tom out of the house in the morning than Anne Rory marched into the sitting-room and took command, and turned it, into a dressmaking establishment.  Anne Rory, who deserves more than a passing mention, one of the institutions of Honora’s youth, who sewed for the first families, and knew much more about them than Mr. Meeker, the dancing-master.  If you enjoyed her confidence,—­as Aunt Mary did,—­she would tell you of her own accord who gave their servants enough to eat, and who didn’t.  Anne Rory was a sort of inquisition all by herself, and would have made a valuable chief of police.  The reputations of certain elderly gentlemen of wealth might have remained to this day intact had it not been for her; she had a heaven-sent knack of discovering peccadilloes.  Anne Rory knew the gentlemen by sight, and the gentlemen did not know Anne Rory.  Uncle Tom she held to be somewhere in the calendar of the saints.

There is not time, alas, to linger over Anne Rory or the new histories which she whispered to Aunt Mary when Honora was out of the room.  At last the eventful day of departure arrived.  Honora’s new trunk—­her first—­was packed by Aunt Mary’s own hands, the dainty clothes and the dresses folded in tissue paper, while old Catherine stood sniffing by.  After dinner—­sign of a great occasion—­a carriage came from Braintree’s Livery Stable, and Uncle Tom held the horses while the driver carried out the trunk and strapped it on.  Catherine, Mary Ann, and Bridget, all weeping, were kissed good-by, and off they went through the dusk to the station.  Not the old Union Depot, with its wooden sheds, where Honora had gone so often to see the Hanburys off, that grimy gateway to the fairer regions of the earth.  This new station, of brick and stone and glass and tiles, would hold an army corps with ease.  And when they alighted at the carriage entrance, a tall figure came forward out of the shadow.  It was Peter, and he had a package under his arm.  Peter checked Honora’s trunk, and Peter had got the permission—­through Judge Brice—­which enabled them all to pass through the grille and down the long walk beside which the train was standing.

They entered that hitherto mysterious conveyance, a sleeping-car, and spoke to old Mrs. Stanley, who was going East to see her married daughter, and who had gladly agreed to take charge of Honora.  Afterwards they stood on the platform, but in spite of the valiant efforts of Uncle Tom and Peter, conversation was a mockery.

“Honora,” said Aunt Mary, “don’t forget that your trunk key is in the little pocket on the left side of your bag.”

“No, Aunt Mary.”

“And your little New Testament at the bottom.  And your lunch is arranged in three packages.  And don’t forget to ask Cousin Eleanor about the walking shoes, and to give her my note.”