she opened it, she was blinded once more. Dear
Peter! That box was eloquent with the care with which he had studied
her slightest desires and caprices. Marrons glaces, and Langtrys, and
certain chocolates which had received the stamp of her approval--and she
could not so much as eat one! The porter made the berths. And there had
been a time when she had asked nothing more of fate than to travel in a
sleeping-car! Far into the night she lay wide awake, dry-eyed, watching
the lamp-lit streets of the little towns they passed, or staring at the
cornfields and pastures in the darkness; thinking of the home she had
left, perhaps forever, and wondering whether they were sleeping there;
picturing them to-morrow at breakfast without her, and Uncle Tom leaving
for the bank, Aunt Mary going through the silent rooms alone, and
dear old Catherine haunting the little chamber where she had slept for
seventeen years--almost her lifetime. A hundred vivid scenes of her
childhood came back, and familiar objects oddly intruded themselves; the
red and green lambrequin on the parlour mantel--a present many years ago
from Cousin Eleanor; the what-not, with its funny curly legs, and the
bare spot near the lock on the door of the cake closet in the dining
room!

Youth, however, has its recuperative powers. The next day the excitement
of the journey held her, the sight of new cities and a new countryside.
But when she tried to eat the lunch Aunt Mary had so carefully put
up, new memories assailed her, and she went with Mrs. Stanley into the
dining car. The September dusk was made lurid by belching steel-furnaces
that reddened the heavens; and later, when she went to bed, sharp air
and towering contours told her of the mountains. Mountains which her
great-grandfather had crossed on horse back, with that very family
silver in his saddle-bags which shone on Aunt Mary's table. And
then--she awoke with the light shining in her face, and barely had time
to dress before the conductor was calling out "Jersey City."

Once more the morning, and with it new and wonderful sensations that
dispelled her sorrows; the ferry, the olive-green river rolling in the
morning sun, alive with dodging, hurrying craft, each bent upon its
destination with an energy, relentlessness, and selfishness of purpose
that fascinated Honora. Each, with its shrill, protesting whistle,
seemed to say: "My business is the most important. Make way for me." And
yet, through them all, t