“Oh, I’d so like to go, Susan.  And I don’t think Aunt Mary would object —–­for a little while.”

Honora lost no time in writing the letter asking for permission, and it was not until after she had posted it that she felt a sudden, sharp regret as she thought of them in their loneliness.  But the postponement of her homecoming would only be for a fortnight at best.  And she had seen so little!

In due time Aunt Mary’s letter arrived.  There was no mention of loneliness in it, only of joy that Honora was to have the opportunity to visit such a place as Silverdale.  Aunt Mary, it seems, had seen pictures of it long ago in a magazine of the book club, in an article concerning one of Mrs. Holt’s charities—­a model home for indiscreet young women.  At the end of the year, Aunt Mary added, she had bought the number of the magazine, because of her natural interest in Mrs. Holt on Honora’s account.  Honora cried a little over that letter, but her determination to go to Silverdale was unshaken.

June came at last, and the end of school.  The subject of Miss Turner’s annual talk was worldliness.  Miss Turner saw signs, she regretted to say, of a lowering in the ideals of American women:  of a restlessness, of a desire for what was a false consideration and recognition; for power.  Some of her own pupils, alas! were not free from this fault.  Ethel Wing, who was next to Honora, nudged her and laughed, and passed her some of Maillard’s chocolates, which she had in her pocket.  Woman’s place, continued Miss Turner, was the home, and she hoped they would all make good wives.  She had done her best to prepare them to be such.  Independence, they would find, was only relative:  no one had it completely.  And she hoped that none of her scholars would ever descend to that base competition to outdo one’s neighbours, so characteristic of the country to-day.

The friends, and even the enemies, were kissed good-by, with pledges of eternal friendship.  Cousin Eleanor Hanbury came for Edith and Mary, and hoped Honora would enjoy herself at Silverdale.  Dear Cousin Eleanor!  Her heart was large, and her charity unpretentious.  She slipped into Honora’s fingers, as she embraced her, a silver-purse with some gold coins in it, and bade her not to forget to write home very often.

“You know what pleasure it will give them, my dear,” she said, as she stepped on the train for New York.

“And I am going home soon, Cousin Eleanor,” replied Honora, with a little touch of homesickness in her voice.

“I know, dear,” said Mrs. Hanbury.  But there was a peculiar, almost wistful expression on her face as she kissed Honora again, as of one who assents to a fiction in order to humour a child.

As the train pulled out, Ethel Wing waved to her from the midst of a group of girls on the wide rear platform of the last car.  It was Mr. Wing’s private car, and was going to Newport.

“Be good, Honora!” she cried.