“I don’t want to be spared for my own good,” she answered. “I prefer staying at home. You think that I shall carry all before me out there! You are greatly mistaken. All your geese are swans. _I_ am a goose, and not a swan. I am just a country cousin, with a bad complexion and uncouth manners.” “Honor! you have a beautiful skin, only not much colour; and as for your manners, they are as good as other people’s.” “You have often said that mine are alarmingly abrupt, and that I have the habits of a savage or a child in the way I blurt out home-truths.” “Oh, but only at home; and you must not _always_ mind what I say.” “Then what about the present moment? When you say that I ought to go out to Uncle Pelham--how am I to know that I ought to mind what you say now?” “Upon my word, Honor, you are really too provoking!” Little did Mrs. Gordon and her friends suspect how their weighty reasons and arguments were nullified by Fairy, who nightly, with arms wound tightly round her sister’s neck, and face pressed to hers, whispered, “You won’t go; promise me, you won’t go.” Jessie, the clear-sighted, at last began to suspect that Fairy was at the bottom of her sister’s reluctance to acquiesce. Fairy was so demonstratively affectionate to Honor. This was unusual. It was too bad, that Fairy should rule her family, and that her wishes should be law. Jessie conferred with her mother, and they agreed to try another plan. They would drop the subject, and see if feminine contrariness would be their good friend? The word “India” was therefore not uttered for three whole precious days; patterns and passages, etc., were no longer discussed, matters fell back into their old monotonous groove, save that Mrs. Gordon frequently gazed at her youngest daughter, and heaved unusually long and significant sighs. One afternoon, ten days after the letter had been received which still lay unanswered in Mrs. Gordon’s desk, Honor met the rector as she was returning from practising Sunday hymns on the wheezy old harmonium. “This will be one of your last practices,” he said. “I am sure I don’t know _how_ we are to replace you.” “Why should you replace me?” she asked. “I am not going away.” “Not going away,” he repeated. “I understood that it was all settled. Why have you changed your mind?” “I never made up my mind to go.” “Why not? Think of all the advantages you will gain.” “Yes, advantages; that is what Jessie is always drumming into my head. I shall see the world, I shall have pretty dresses, and a pony, and plenty of balls and parties, and new friends.” “And surely you would enjoy all these--you are only nineteen, Honor?”