A Modern Chronicle — Complete. Winston Churchill

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СКАЧАТЬ very often. It has always seemed much more like home to me than our house in New York, and I love it better than any spot I know.”

      Honora gazed at Susan, who had resumed her reading.

      “And you are going there when school is over.”

      “Oh, yes,” said Susan; “I can hardly wait.” Suddenly she put down her letter, and looked at Honora.

      “And you,” she asked, “where are you going?”

      “I don't know. Perhaps—perhaps I shall go to the sea for a while with my cousins.”

      It was foolish, it was wrong. But for the life of her Honora could not say she was going to spend the long hot summer in St. Louis. The thought of it had haunted her for weeks: and sometimes, when the other girls were discussing their plans, she had left them abruptly. And now she was aware that Susan's blue eyes were fixed upon her, and that they had a strange and penetrating quality she had never noticed before: a certain tenderness, an understanding that made Honora redden and turn.

      “I wish,” said Susan, slowly, “that you would come and stay awhile with me. Your home is so far away, and I don't know when I shall see you again.”

      “Oh, Susan,” she murmured, “it's awfully good of you, but I'm afraid—I couldn't.”

      She walked to the window, and stood looking out for a moment at the budding trees. Her heart was beating faster, and she was strangely uncomfortable.

      “I really don't expect to go to the sea, Susan,” she said. “You see, my aunt and uncle are all alone in St. Louis, and I ought to go back to them. If—if my father had lived, it might have been different. He died, and my mother, when I was little more than a year old.”

      Susan was all sympathy. She slipped her hand into Honora's.

      “Where did he live?” she asked.

      “Abroad,” answered Honora. “He was consul at Nice, and had a villa there when he died. And people said he had an unusually brilliant career before him. My aunt and uncle brought me up, and my cousin, Mrs. Hanbury, Edith's mother, and Mary's, sent me here to school.”

      Honora breathed easier after this confession, but it was long before sleep came to her that night. She wondered what it would be like to visit at a great country house such as Silverdale, what it would be like to live in one. It seemed a strange and cruel piece of irony on the part of the fates that Susan, instead of Honora, should have been chosen for such a life: Susan, who would have been quite as happy spending her summers in St. Louis, and taking excursions in the electric cars: Susan, who had never experienced that dreadful, vacuum-like feeling, who had no ambitious craving to be satisfied. Mingled with her flushes of affection for Susan was a certain queer feeling of contempt, of which Honora was ashamed.

      Nevertheless, in the days that followed, a certain metamorphosis seemed to have taken place in Susan. She was still the same modest, self-effacing, helpful roommate, but in Honora's eyes she had changed—Honora could no longer separate her image from the vision of Silverdale. And, if the naked truth must be told, it was due to Silverdale that Susan owes the honour of her first mention in those descriptive letters from Sutcliffe, which Aunt Mary has kept to this day.

      Four days later Susan had a letter from her mother containing an astonishing discovery. There could be no mistake—Mrs. Holt had brought Honora to this country as a baby.

      “Why, Susan,” cried Honora, “you must have been the other baby.”

      “But you were the beautiful one,” replied Susan, generously. “I have often heard mother tell about it, and how every one on the ship noticed you, and how Hortense cried when your aunt and uncle took you away. And to think we have been rooming together all these months and did not know that we were really—old friends.

      “And Honora, mother says you must come to Silverdale to pay us a visit when school closes. She wants to see you. I think,” added Susan, smiling, “I think she feels responsible, for you. She says that you must give me your aunts address, and that she will write to her.”

      “Oh, I'd so like to go, Susan. And I don't think Aunt Mary would object—for a little while.”

      Honora lost no time in writing the letter asking for permission, and it was not until after she had posted it that she felt a sudden, sharp regret as she thought of them in their loneliness. But the postponement of her homecoming would only be for a fortnight at best. And she had seen so little!

      In due time Aunt Mary's letter arrived. There was no mention of loneliness in it, only of joy that Honora was to have the opportunity to visit such a place as Silverdale. Aunt Mary, it seems, had seen pictures of it long ago in a magazine of the book club, in an article concerning one of Mrs. Holt's charities—a model home for indiscreet young women. At the end of the year, Aunt Mary added, she had bought the number of the magazine, because of her natural interest in Mrs. Holt on Honora's account. Honora cried a little over that letter, but her determination to go to Silverdale was unshaken.

      June came at last, and the end of school. The subject of Miss Turner's annual talk was worldliness. Miss Turner saw signs, she regretted to say, of a lowering in the ideals of American women: of a restlessness, of a desire for what was a false consideration and recognition; for power. Some of her own pupils, alas! were not free from this fault. Ethel Wing, who was next to Honora, nudged her and laughed, and passed her some of Maillard's chocolates, which she had in her pocket. Woman's place, continued Miss Turner, was the home, and she hoped they would all make good wives. She had done her best to prepare them to be such. Independence, they would find, was only relative: no one had it completely. And she hoped that none of her scholars would ever descend to that base competition to outdo one's neighbours, so characteristic of the country to-day.

      The friends, and even the enemies, were kissed good-by, with pledges of eternal friendship. Cousin Eleanor Hanbury came for Edith and Mary, and hoped Honora would enjoy herself at Silverdale. Dear Cousin Eleanor! Her heart was large, and her charity unpretentious. She slipped into Honora's fingers, as she embraced her, a silver-purse with some gold coins in it, and bade her not to forget to write home very often.

      “You know what pleasure it will give them, my dear,” she said, as she stepped on the train for New York.

      “And I am going home soon, Cousin Eleanor,” replied Honora, with a little touch of homesickness in her voice.

      “I know, dear,” said Mrs. Hanbury. But there was a peculiar, almost wistful expression on her face as she kissed Honora again, as of one who assents to a fiction in order to humour a child.

      As the train pulled out, Ethel Wing waved to her from the midst of a group of girls on the wide rear platform of the last car. It was Mr. Wing's private car, and was going to Newport.

      “Be good, Honora!” she cried.

Volume 2.

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CHAPTER VII. THE OLYMPIAN ORDER

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