A Modern Chronicle — Complete. Winston Churchill

      The Christmas holidays came, and went by like mileposts from the window of an express train. There was a Glee Club: there were dances, and private theatricals in Mrs. Dwyer's new house, in which it was imperative that Honora should take part. There was no such thing as getting up for breakfast, and once she did not see Uncle Tom for two whole days. He asked her where she was staying. It was the first Christmas she remembered spending without Peter. His present appeared, but perhaps it was fortunate, on the whole, that he was in Texas, trying a case. It seemed almost no time at all before she was at the station again, clinging to Aunt Mary: but now the separation was not so hard, and she had Edith and Mary for company, and George, a dignified and responsible sophomore at Harvard.

      Owing to the sudden withdrawal from school of little Louise Simpson, the Cincinnati girl who had shared her room during the first term, Honora had a new room-mate after the holidays, Susan Holt. Susan was not beautiful, but she was good. Her nose turned up, her hair Honora described as a negative colour, and she wore it in defiance of all prevailing modes. If you looked very hard at Susan (which few people ever did), you saw that she had remarkable blue eyes: they were the eyes of a saint. She was neither tall nor short, and her complexion was not all that it might have been. In brief, Susan was one of those girls who go through a whole term at boarding—school without any particular notice from the more brilliant Honoras and Ethel Wings.

      In some respects, Susan was an ideal room-mate. She read the Bible every night and morning, and she wrote many letters home. Her ruling passion, next to religion, was order, and she took it upon herself to arrange Honora's bureau drawers. It is needless to say that Honora accepted these ministrations and that she found Susan's admiration an entirely natural sentiment. Susan was self-effacing, and she enjoyed listening to Honora's views on all topics.

      Susan, like Peter, was taken for granted. She came from somewhere, and after school was over, she would go somewhere. She lived in New York, Honora knew, and beyond that was not curious. We never know when we are entertaining an angel unawares. One evening, early in May, when she went up to prepare for supper she found Susan sitting in the window reading a letter, and on the floor beside her was a photograph. Honora picked it up. It was the picture of a large country house with many chimneys, taken across a wide green lawn.

      “Susan, what's this?”

      Susan looked up.

      “Oh, it's Silverdale. My brother Joshua took it.”

      “Silverdale?” repeated Honora.

      “It's our place in the country,” Susan replied. “The family moved up last week. You see, the trees are just beginning to bud.”

      Honora was silent a moment, gazing at the picture.

      “It's very beautiful, isn't it? You never told me about it.”

      “Didn't I?” said Susan. “I think of it very often. It has always seemed much more like home to me than our house in New York, and I love it better than any spot I know.”

      Honora gazed at Susan, who had resumed her reading.

      “And you are going there when school is over.”

      “Oh, yes,” said Susan; “I can hardly wait.” Suddenly she put down her letter, and looked at Honora.

      “And you,” she asked, “where are you going?”

      “I don't know. Perhaps—perhaps I shall go to the sea for a while with my cousins.”

      It was foolish, it was wrong. But for the life of her Honora could not say she was going to spend the long hot summer in St. Louis. The thought of it had haunted her for weeks: and sometimes, when the other girls were discussing their plans, she had left them abruptly. And now she was aware that Susan's blue eyes were fixed upon her, and that they had a strange and penetrating quality she had never noticed before: a certain tenderness, an understanding that made Honora redden and turn.

      “I wish,” said Susan, slowly, “that you would come and stay awhile with me. Your home is so far away, and I don't know when I shall see you again.”

      “Oh, Susan,” she murmured, “it's awfully good of you, but I'm afraid—I couldn't.”

      She walked to the window, and stood looking out for a moment at the budding trees. Her heart was beating faster, and she was strangely uncomfortable.

      “I really don't expect to go to the sea, Susan,” she said. “You see, my aunt and uncle are all alone in St. Louis, and I ought to go back to them. If—if my father had lived, it might have been different. He died, and my mother, when I was little more than a year old.”

      Susan was all sympathy. She slipped her hand into Honora's.

      “Where did he live?” she asked.

      “Abroad,” answered Honora. “He was consul at Nice, and had a villa there when he died. And people said he had an unusually brilliant career before him. My aunt and uncle brought me up, and my cousin, Mrs. Hanbury, Edith's mother, and Mary's, sent me here to school.”

      Honora breathed easier after this confession, but it was long before sleep came to her that night. She wondered what it would be like to visit at a great country house such as Silverdale, what it would be like to live in one. It seemed a strange and cruel piece of irony on the part of the fates that Susan, instead of Honora, should have been chosen for such a life: Susan, who would have been quite as happy spending her summers in St. Louis, and taking excursions in the electric cars: Susan, who had never experienced that dreadful, vacuum-like feeling, who had no ambitious craving to be satisfied. Mingled with her flushes of affection for Susan was a certain queer feeling of contempt, of which Honora was ashamed.

      Nevertheless, in the days that followed, a certain metamorphosis seemed to have taken place in Susan. She was still the same modest, self-effacing, helpful roommate, but in Honora's eyes she had changed—Honora could no longer separate her image from the vision of Silverdale. And, if the naked truth must be told, it was due to Silverdale that Susan owes the honour of her first mention in those descriptive letters from Sutcliffe, which Aunt Mary has kept to this day.

      Four days later Susan had a letter from her mother containing an astonishing discovery. There could be no mistake—Mrs. Holt had brought Honora to this country as a baby.

      “Why, Susan,” cried Honora, “you must have been the other baby.”

      “But you were the beautiful one,” replied Susan, generously. “I have often heard mother tell about it, and how every one on the ship noticed you, and how Hortense cried when your aunt and uncle took you away. And to think we have been rooming together all these months and did not know that we were really—old friends.

      “And Honora, mother says you must come to Silverdale to pay us a visit when school closes. She wants to see you. I think,” added Susan, smiling, “I think she feels responsible, for you. She says that you must give me your aunts address, and that she will write to her.”

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

      Honora