A Modern Chronicle | Page 8

ill, Honora further surprised her aunt by exclaiming: "How
can you talk of things other people have and not want them, Aunt
Mary?"
"Why should I desire what I cannot have, my dear? I take such pleasure
out of my friends' possessions as I can."
"But you want to go to the seashore, I know you do. I've heard you say
so," Honora protested.
"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
What quality was it in Honora that compelled Bridget to stop her
ironing on Tuesdays in order to make hot waffles for a young woman
who was late to breakfast? Bridget, who would have filled the kitchen
with righteous wrath if Aunt Mary had transgressed the rules of the
house, which were like the laws of the Medes and Persians! And in
Honora's early youth Mary Ann, the housemaid, spent more than one
painful evening writing home for cockle shells and other articles to
propitiate our princess, who rewarded her with a winning smile and a
kiss, which invariably melted the honest girl into tears. The Queen of
Scots never had a more devoted chamber woman than old
Catherine,--who would have gone to the stake with a smile to save her
little lady a single childish ill, and who spent her savings, until severely

taken to task by Aunt Mary, upon objects for which a casual wish had
been expressed. The saints themselves must at times have been aweary
from hearing Honora's name.
Not to speak of Christmas! Christmas in the little house was one wild
delirium of joy. The night before the festival was, to all outward
appearances, an ordinary evening, when Uncle Tom sat by the fire in
his slippers, as usual, scouting the idea that there would be any
Christmas at all. Aunt Mary