“I should like to see the open ocean before I die,” admitted Aunt Mary, unexpectedly.  “I saw New York harbour once, when we went to meet you.  And I know how the salt water smells—­which is as much, perhaps, as I have the right to hope for.  But I have often thought it would be nice to sit for a whole summer by the sea and listen to the waves dashing upon the beach, like those in the Chase picture in Mr. Dwyer’s gallery.”

Aunt Mary little guessed the unspeakable rebellion aroused in Honora by this acknowledgment of being fatally circumscribed.  Wouldn’t Uncle Tom ever be rich?

Aunt Mary shook her head—­she saw no prospect of it.

But other men, who were not half so good as Uncle Tom, got rich.

Uncle Tom was not the kind of man who cared for riches.  He was content to do his duty in that sphere where God had placed him.

Poor Aunt Mary.  Honora never asked her uncle such questions:  to do so never occurred to her.  At peace with all men, he gave of his best to children, and Honora remained a child.  Next to his flowers, walking was Uncle Tom’s chief recreation, and from the time she could be guided by the hand she went with him.  His very presence had the gift of dispelling longings, even in the young; the gift of compelling delight in simple things.  Of a Sunday afternoon, if the heat were not too great, he would take Honora to the wild park that stretches westward of the city, and something of the depth and intensity of his pleasure in the birds, the forest, and the wild flowers would communicate itself to her.  She learned all unconsciously (by suggestion, as it were) to take delight in them; a delight that was to last her lifetime, a never failing resource to which she was to turn again and again.  In winter, they went to the botanical gardens or the Zoo.  Uncle Tom had a passion for animals, and Mr. Isham, who was a director, gave him a pass through the gates.  The keepers knew him, and spoke to him with kindly respect.  Nay, it seemed to Honora that the very animals knew him, and offered themselves ingratiatingly to be stroked by one whom they recognized as friend.  Jaded horses in the street lifted their noses; stray, homeless cats rubbed against his legs, and vagrant dogs looked up at him trustfully with wagging tails.

Yet his goodness, as Emerson would have said, had some edge to it.  Honora had seen the light of anger in his blue eye—­a divine ray.  Once he had chastised her for telling Aunt Mary a lie (she could not have lied to him) and Honora had never forgotten it.  The anger of such a man had indeed some element in it of the divine; terrible, not in volume, but in righteous intensity.  And when it had passed there was no occasion for future warning.  The memory of it lingered.

CHAPTER III

CONCERNING PROVIDENCE