id Mrs. Hanbury, again, "I realize how you worked to make the
child that velvet coat. Do you think you ought to dress her that way?"

"I don't see why she shouldn't be as well dressed as the children of my
friends, Eleanor."

Mrs. Hanbury laid her hand impulsively on Aunt Mary's.

"No child I know of dresses half as well," said Mrs. Hanbury. "The
trouble you take--"

"Is rewarded," said Aunt Mary.

"Yes," Mrs. Hanbury agreed. "If my own daughters were half as good
looking, I should be content. And Honora has an air of race. Oh, Mary,
can't you see? I am only thinking of the child's future."

"Do you expect me to take down all my mirrors, Eleanor? If she has good
looks," said Aunt Mary, "she has not learned it from my lips."

It was true: Even Aunt Mary's enemies, and she had some, could not
accuse her of the weakness of flattery. So Mrs. Hanbury smiled, and
dropped the subject.

CHAPTER IV. OF TEMPERAMENT

We have the word of Mr. Cyrus Meeker that Honora did not have to learn
to dance. The art came to her naturally. Of Mr. Cyrus Meeker, whose
mustaches, at the age of five and sixty, are waxed as tight as ever, and
whose little legs to-day are as nimble as of yore. He has a memory like
Mr. Gladstone's, and can give you a social history of the city that is
well worth your time and attention. He will tell you how, for instance,
he was kicked by the august feet of Mr. George Hanbury on the occasion
of his first lesson to that distinguished young gentleman; and how,
although Mr. Meeker's shins were sore, he pleaded nobly for Mr. George,
who was sent home in the carriage by himself,--a punishment, by the way,
which Mr. George desired above all things.

This celebrated incident occurred in the new ballroom at the top of the
new house of young Mrs. Hayden, where the meetings of the dancing class
were held weekly. Today the soot, like the ashes of Vesuvius, spouting
from ten thousand soft-coal craters, has buried that house and the whole
district fathoms deep in social obscurity. And beautiful Mrs. Hayden
what has become of her? And Lucy Hayden, that doll-like darling of the
gods?

All this belongs, however, to another history, which may some day be
written. This one is Honora's, and must be got on with, for it is to be
a chronicle of lightning changes. Happy we if we can follow Honora, and
we must be prepared to make many friends and drop them in the process.

Shortly after Mrs. Hayden had built that palatia