se of spectatorship seemed
to fly, and she was part and parcel now of the great, moving things, with
sure pinions with which to soar. Standing rapt upon the forward deck of
the ferry, she saw herself, not an atom, but one whose going and coming
was a thing of consequence. It seemed but a simple step to the deck of
that steamer when she, too, would be travelling to the other side of the
world, and the journey one of the small incidents of life.

The ferry bumped into its slip, the windlasses sang loudly as they took
up the chains, the gates folded back, and Honora was forced with the
crowd along the bridge-like passage to the right. Suddenly she saw Cousin
Eleanor and the girls awaiting her.

"Honora," said Edith, when the greetings were over and they were all four
in the carriage, which was making its way slowly across the dirty and
irregularly paved open space to a narrow street that opened between two
saloons, "Honora, you don't mean to say that Anne Rory made that street
dress? Mother, I believe it's better-looking than the one I got at
Bremer's."

"It's very simple,", said Honora.

"And she looks fairly radiant," cried Edith, seizing her cousin's hand.
"It's quite wonderful, Honora; nobody would ever guess that you were from
the West, and that you had spent the whole summer in St. Louis."

Cousin Eleanor smiled a little as she contemplated Honora, who sat,
fascinated, gazing out of the window at novel scenes. There was a colour
in her cheeks and a sparkle in her eyes. They had reached Madison Square.
Madison Square, on a bright morning in late September, seen for the first
time by an ambitious young lady who had never been out of St. Louis! The
trimly appointed vehicles, the high-stepping horses, the glittering
shops, the well-dressed women and well-groomed men--all had an esprit de
corps which she found inspiring. On such a morning, and amidst such a
scene, she felt that there was no limit to the possibilities of life.

Until this year, Cousin Eleanor had been a conservative in the matter of
hotels, when she had yielded to Edith's entreaties to go to one of the
"new ones." Hotels, indeed, that revolutionized transient existence. This
one, on the Avenue, had a giant in a long blue livery coat who opened
their carriage door, and a hall in yellow and black onyx, and maids and
valets. After breakfast, when Honora sat down to write to Aunt Mary, she
described the suite of rooms in which they lived,--the brass beds,