a, if you
still wish to go to the Girls' Home, I have ordered the carriage in a
quarter of an hour."

CHAPTER VIII

A CHAPTER OF CONQUESTS

Honora's interest in the Institution was so lively, and she asked so many
questions and praised so highly the work with which the indiscreet young
women were occupied that Mrs. Holt patted her hand as they drove
homeward.

"My dear," she said, "I begin to wish I'd adopted you myself. Perhaps,
later on, we can find a husband for you, and you will marry and settle
down near us here at Silverdale, and then you can help me with the work."

"Oh, Mrs. Holt," she replied, "I should so like to help you, I mean. And
it would be wonderful to live in such a place. And as for marriage, it
seems such a long way off that somehow I never think of it."

"Naturally," ejaculated Mrs. Holt, with approval, "a young girl of your
age should not. But, my dear, I am afraid you are destined to have many
admirers. If you had not been so well brought up, and were not naturally
so sensible, I should fear for you."

"Oh, Mrs. Holt!" exclaimed Honora, deprecatingly, and blushing very
prettily.

"Whatever else I am," said Mrs. Holt, vigorously, "I am not a flatterer.
I am telling you something for your own good--which you probably know
already."

Honora was discreetly silent. She thought of the proud and unsusceptible
George Hanbury, whom she had cast down from the tower of his sophomore
dignity with such apparent ease; and of certain gentlemen at home, young
and middle-aged, who had behaved foolishly during the Christmas holidays.

At lunch both the Roberts and the Joshuas were away.

Afterwards, they romped with the children--she and Susan. They were shy
at first, especially the third Joshua, but Honora captivated him by
playing two sets of tennis in the broiling sun, at the end of which
exercise he regarded her with a new-born admiration in his eyes. He was
thirteen.

"I didn't think you were that kind at all," he said.

"What kind did you think I was?" asked Honora, passing her arm around his
shoulder as they walked towards the house.

The boy grew scarlet.

"Oh, I didn't think you--you could play tennis," he stammered.

Honora stopped, and seized his chin and tilted his face upward.

"Now, Joshua," she said, "look at me and say that over again."

"Well," he replied desperately, "I thought you wouldn't want to get all
mussed up and hot."

"That's better," said Honora. "You thoug