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.