Thus they set off on their honeymoon, poor inexperienced young souls! He persuaded her, with no great difficulty, to stay in London first for a few days--hoping to be able to correct the dress--for how could he take her to France, where dress means something, to travel in November in a salmon-coloured silk gown? This may seem a poor sort of thing to occupy a bridegroom’s thoughts. But then the vehemence of a reformer and missionary was added in Arthur’s case to the new sense of responsibility that was upon him. He must make her perfect--if he could. CHAPTER XIII. The long avenue at Oakley was as dreary as the damp street of Underhayes. The rain drizzling, a constant soft downfall, half of the chilly shower, half of the yellow leaves, going on without intermission. Here and there one of the great oaks from which the place had its name, stood up all russet and solid, with the dry leaves clinging to its branches; here were feeble flutters of denuded sycamore and lime, there elms standing up in a forlorn faded greenness, all rusty, shabby, ragged, their year’s clothing worn out. The house itself appeared in glimpses as they drove along, grey and cold with its broad low front stretching along the damp terraces, which were so green with the wet as to put everything out of harmony. The neighbourhood was proud of Oakley Hall, which was said to be pure Italian, Palladian, or something finer still if there is any finer word. It had an imposing front with pediments and pillars, supposed to be white, but at present the very colour of cold, damp and mournful. Lady Curtis shivered as they drove along, sighting it by glimpses, now more, now less distinctly through the trees. It was her home, but there was not much sympathy between the lively quick-feeling woman and the blank splendour of the cold long-drawn-out house. She was never fond of it at any time. What she would have given for red brick! but Palladio was very much more dignified if not so kindly. “How dismal we shall be without Arthur,” she said as they approached. They had not talked very much to each other on the journey. All that could be said about Arthur had been said on the night of Lucy’s return from Underhayes, but it was not possible to keep absolute silence about him now. The house was so full of Arthur; they seemed to see him upon the steps, in the avenue, appearing across the park with his gun. And now he had disappeared from the place. Their own sudden departure, when they first heard of his folly, had broken up the lingering remnant of a shooting party which had assembled at Oakley, chiefly for Arthur’s pleasure, but which no persuasions had induced Arthur to join. Now the men and their guns were all gone, and there was an interval of quiet before them till Christmas, when Sir John’s habitual party of parliamentary friends would assemble. Nothing but mourning could interfere with that; and, “we can’t put on mourning for