at doubtful assistance of
his wife, making lavish and pathetic attempts to right himself. Newport
had never forgiven him for the razing of a mansion and the felling of
trees which had been landmarks, and for the driving out of Mrs. Forsythe.
The mere sight of the modern wall had been too much for this lady--the
lilacs and the leaves in the lane mercifully hid the palace--and after
five and thirty peaceful summers she had moved out, and let the cottage.
It was furnished with delightful old-fashioned things that seemed to
express, at every turn, the aristocratic and uncompromising personality
of the owner who had lived so long in their midst.

Mr. Chamberlin, who has nothing whatever to do with this chronicle except
to have been the indirect means of Honora's installation, used to come
through the wall once a week or so to sit for half an hour on her porch
as long as he ever sat anywhere. He had reddish side-whiskers, and he
reminded her of a buzzing toy locomotive wound up tight and suddenly
taken from the floor. She caught glimpses of him sometimes in the
mornings buzzing around his gardeners, his painters, his carpenters, and
his grooms. He would buzz the rest of his life, but nothing short of a
revolution could take his possessions away.

The Graingers and the Grenfells and the Stranges might move mountains,
but not Mr. Chamberlin's house. Whatever heart-burnings he may have had
because certain people refused to come to his balls, he was in Newport to
remain. He would sit under the battlements until the crack of doom; or
rather--and more appropriate in Mr. Chamberlin's case--walk around them
and around, blowing trumpets until they capitulated.

Honora magically found herself within them, and without a siege. Behold
her at last in the setting for which we always felt she was destined. Why
is it, in this world, that realization is so difficult a thing? Now that
she is there, how shall we proceed to give the joys of her Elysium their
full value? Not, certainly, by repeating the word pleasure over and over
again: not by describing the palaces at which she lunched and danced and
dined, or the bright waters in which she bathed, or the yachts in which
she sailed. During the week, indeed, she moved untrammelled in a world
with which she found herself in perfect harmony: it was new, it was
dazzling, it was unexplored. During the week it possessed still another
and more valuable attribute--it was real. And she, Honora Leffingw