l house (which had a
high fence around its grounds and a driveway leading to a porte-cochere)
and had given her initial ball, the dancing class began. It was on a
blue afternoon in late November that Aunt Mary and Honora, with Cousin
Eleanor and the two girls, and George sulking in a corner of the
carriage, were driven through the gates behind Bias and the fat horses
of the Hanburys.

Honora has a vivid remembrance of the impression the house made on
her, with its polished floors and spacious rooms filled with a new
and mysterious and altogether inspiring fashion of things. Mrs. Hayden
represented the outposts in the days of Richardson and Davenport--had
Honora but known it. This great house was all so different from anything
she (and many others in the city) had ever seen. And she stood gazing
into the drawing room, with its curtains and decorously drawn shades, in
a rapture which her aunt and cousins were far from guessing.

"Come, Honora," said her aunt. "What's the matter, dear?"

How could she explain to Aunt Mary that the sight of beautiful things
gave her a sort of pain--when she did not yet know it herself? There was
the massive stairway, for instance, which they ascended, softly lighted
by a great leaded window of stained glass on the first landing; and
the spacious bedrooms with their shining brass beds and lace spreads
(another innovation which Honora resolved to adopt when she married);
and at last, far above all, its deep-set windows looking out above
the trees towards the park a mile to the westward, the ballroom,--the
ballroom, with its mirrors and high chandeliers, and chairs of gilt and
blue set against the walls, all of which made no impression whatever
upon George and Mary and Edith, but gave Honora a thrill. No wonder that
she learned to dance quickly under such an inspiration!

And how pretty Mrs. Hayden looked as she came forward to greet them and
kissed Honora! She had been Virginia Grey, and scarce had had a gown to
her back when she had married the elderly Duncan Hayden, who had built
her this house and presented her with a checkbook,--a check-book which
Virginia believed to be like the widow's cruse of oil-unfailing. Alas,
those days of picnics and balls; of dinners at that recent innovation,
the club; of theatre-parties and excursions to baseball games between
the young men in Mrs. Hayden's train (and all young men were) who played
at Harvard or Yale or Princeton; those days were too care-f