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, towering, stately, imperturbable, a great ocean steamer
glided slowly towards the bay, by very might and majesty holding her way
serene and undisturbed, on a nobler errand. Honora thrilled as she gazed,
as though at last her dream were coming true, and she felt within her the
pulse of the world's artery. That irksome sen