“Honora would only have eaten the jam,” said Mrs. Hayden.  “But I love her.”

“I, too, am fond of the child, but I tremble for her.  I am afraid she has that terrible thing which is called temperament.”

George Hanbury made a second heroic rush, and dragged Honora out once more.

“What is this disease you’ve got?” he demanded.

“Disease?” she cried; “I haven’t any disease.”

“Mrs Dwyer says you have temperament, and that it is a terrible thing.”

Honora stopped him in a corner.

“Because people like Mrs. Dwyer haven’t got it,” she declared, with a warmth which George found inexplicable.

“What is it?” he demanded.

“You’ll never know, either, George,” she answered; “it’s soul.”

“Soul!” he repeated; “I have one, and its immortal,” he added promptly.

In the summer, that season of desolation for Honora, when George Hanbury and Algernon Cartwright and other young gentlemen were at the seashore learning to sail boats and to play tennis, Peter Erwin came to his own.  Nearly every evening after dinner, while the light was still lingering under the shade trees of the street, and Aunt Mary still placidly sewing in the wicker chair on the lawn, and Uncle Tom making the tour of flowers with his watering pot, the gate would slam, and Peter’s tall form appear.

It never occurred to Honora that had it not been for Peter those evenings would have been even less bearable than they were.  To sit indoors with a light and read in a St. Louis midsummer was not to be thought of.  Peter played backgammon with her on the front steps, and later on—­chess.  Sometimes they went for a walk as far as Grand Avenue.  And sometimes when Honora grew older—­she was permitted to go with him to Uhrig’s Cave.  Those were memorable occasions indeed!

What Saint Louisan of the last generation does not remember Uhrig’s Cave? nor look without regret upon the thing which has replaced it, called a Coliseum?  The very name, Uhrig’s Cave, sent a shiver of delight down one’s spine, and many were the conjectures one made as to what might be enclosed in that half a block of impassible brick wall, over which the great trees stretched their branches.  Honora, from comparative infancy, had her own theory, which so possessed the mind of Edith Hanbury that she would not look at the wall when they passed in the carriage.  It was a still and sombre place by day; and sometimes, if you listened, you could hear the whisperings of the forty thieves on the other side of the wall.  But no one had ever dared to cry “Open, Sesame!” at the great wooden gates.

At night, in the warm season, when well brought up children were at home or at the seashore, strange things were said to happen at Uhrig’s Cave.

Honora was a tall slip of a girl of sixteen before it was given her to know these mysteries, and the Ali Baba theory a thing of the past.  Other theories had replaced it.  Nevertheless she clung tightly to Peter’s arm as they walked down Locust Street and came in sight of the wall.  Above it, and under the big trees, shone a thousand glittering lights:  there was a crowd at the gate, and instead of saying, “Open, Sesame,” Peter slipped two bright fifty-cent pieces to the red-faced German ticketman, and in they went.