id 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 o