A Modern Chronicle | Page 9

sewed, and talked with maddening
calmness of the news of the day; but for Honora the air was charged
with coming events of the first magnitude. The very furniture of the
little sitting-room had a different air, the room itself wore a mysterious
aspect, and the cannel- coal fire seemed to give forth a special quality
of unearthly light.
"Is to-morrow Christmas?" Uncle Tom would exclaim. Bless me!
Honora, I am so glad you reminded me."
"Now, Uncle Tom, you knew it was Christmas all the time!"
"Kiss your uncle good night, Honora, and go right to sleep,
dear,"--from Aunt Mary.
The unconscious irony in that command of Aunt Mary's!--to go right to
sleep! Many times was a head lifted from a small pillow, straining after
the meaning of the squeaky noises that came up from below! Not Santa
Claus. Honora's belief in him had merged into a blind faith in a larger
and even more benevolent, if material providence: the kind of
providence which Mr. Meredith depicts, and which was to say to
Beauchamp: "Here's your marquise;" a particular providence which, at
the proper time, gave Uncle Tom money, and commanded, with a smile,
"Buy this for Honora--she wants it." All-sufficient reason!
Soul-satisfying philosophy, to which Honora was to cling for many
years of life. It is amazing how much can be wrung from a reluctant
world by the mere belief in this kind of providence.
Sleep came at last, in the darkest of the hours. And still in the dark
hours a stirring, a delicious sensation preceding reason, and the

consciousness of a figure stealing about the room. Honora sat up in bed,
shivering with cold and delight.
"Is it awake ye are, darlint, and it but four o'clock the morn!"
"What are you doing, Cathy?"
"Musha, it's to Mass I'm going, to ask the Mother of God to give ye
many happy Christmases the like of this, Miss Honora." And
Catherine's arms were about her.
"Oh, it's Christmas, Cathy, isn't it? How could I have forgotten it!"
"Now go to sleep, honey. Your aunt and uncle wouldn't like it at all at
all if ye was to make noise in the middle of the night--and it's little
better it is."
Sleep! A despised waste of time in childhood. Catherine went to Mass,
and after an eternity, the grey December light began to sift through the
shutters, and human endurance had reached its limit. Honora, still
shivering, seized a fleecy wrapper (the handiwork of Aunt Mary) and
crept, a diminutive ghost, down the creaking stairway to the sitting-
room. A sitting-room. which now was not a sitting-room, but for to-day
a place of magic. As though by a prearranged salute of the gods,--at
Honora's entrance the fire burst through the thick blanket of fine coal
which Uncle Tom had laid before going to bed, and with a little gasp of
joy that was almost pain, she paused on the threshold. That one flash,
like Pizarro's first sunrise over Peru, gilded the edge of infinite
possibilities.
Needless to enumerate them. The whole world, as we know, was in a
conspiracy to spoil Honora. The Dwyers, the Cartwrights, the Haydens,
the Brices, the Ishams, and I know not how many others had sent their
tributes, and Honora's second cousins, the Hanburys, from the family
mansion behind the stately elms of Wayland Square--of which
something anon. A miniature mahogany desk, a prayer-book and
hymnal which the Dwyers had brought home from New York, endless
volumes of a more secular and (to Honora) entrancing nature; roller

skates; skates for real ice, when it should apppear in the form of sleet
on the sidewalks; a sled; humbler gifts from Bridget, Mary Ann, and
Catherine, and a wonderful coat, with hat to match, of a certain dark
green velvet. When Aunt Mary appeared, an hour or so later, Honora
was surveying her magnificence in the glass.
"Oh, Aunt Mary!" she cried, with her arms tightly locked around her
aunt's neck, "how lovely! Did you send all the way to New York for
it?"
"No, Honora," said her aunt, "it didn't come from New York." Aunt
Mary did not explain that this coat had been her one engrossing
occupation for six weeks, at such times when Honora was out or tucked
away safely in bed.
Perhaps Honora's face fell a little. Aunt Mary scanned it rather
anxiously.
"Does that cause you to like it any less, Honora?" she asked.
"Aunt Mary!" exclaimed Honora, in a tone of reproval. And added after
a little, "I suppose Mademoiselle made it."
"Does it make any difference who made it, Honora?"
"Oh, no indeed, Aunt Mary. May I wear it to Cousin Eleanor's to-day?"
"I gave it to you to wear, Honora."
Not in Honora's memory was there a Christmas breakfast