“Nine,” said Aunt Mary, promptly. She had counted them. “And Eleanor says she will be home for two weeks at Christmas. Seventeen years! It seems only yesterday when we brought her home, Tom. It was just about this time of day, and she was asleep in your arms, and Bridget opened the door for us.” Aunt Mary looked out of the window. “And do you remember how she used to play under the maple there, with her dolls?”
Uncle Tom produced a very large handkerchief, and blew his nose.
“There, there, Mary,” he said, “nine months, and two weeks out at Christmas. Nine months in eighteen years.”
“I suppose we ought to be very thankful,” said Aunt Mary. “But, Tom, the time is coming soon—”
“Tut tut,” exclaimed Uncle Tom. He turned, and his eyes beheld a work of art. Nothing less than a porcelain plate, hung in brackets on the wall, decorated by Honora at the age of ten with wild roses, and presented with much ceremony on an anniversary morning. He pretended not to notice it, but Aunt Mary's eyes were too quick. She seized a photograph on her bureau, a photograph of Honora in a little white frock with a red sash.
“It was the year that was taken, Tom.”
He nodded. The scene at the breakfast table came back to him, and the sight of Catherine standing respectfully in the hall, and of Honora, in the red sash, making the courtesy the old woman had taught her.
Honora recalled afterwards that Uncle Tom joked even more than usual that evening at dinner. But it was Aunt Mary who asked her, at length, how she would like to go to boarding-school. Such was the matter-of-fact manner in which the portentous news was announced.
“To boarding-school, Aunt Mary?”
Her aunt poured out her uncle's after-dinner coffee.