The intelligence which soon after reached the Paddocks, namely, that Arthur Vavasour was about to leave Gillingham, took Honor by surprise. Not that she was ignorant of the all-important fact that the time was drawing near when the heir-apparent was to take upon himself the duties and responsibilities of matrimony. There was nothing new to Switcham and its neighbourhood in the idea that their young landlord was at the early age of twenty-one to pass at once from the thoughtless irresponsibility of boyhood to the duller dignity of a man; and yet for all that, and though Honor had often heard her husband’s friends and neighbours talk over the coming event, she never seemed quite to realise the fact that Arthur Vavasour was going to be married. One reason of this might be that the future husband of Sophy Duberly was not in the habit of himself alluding to the approaching change. As Honor sometimes said to herself, he seemed to entirely forget what was hanging over his head. His spirits were often fitful; at one time bright and joyous, at another depressed almost to zero. Honor, remembering his engagement, would often marvel at his fits of absence, his look--so strange in one so young--of brooding care; for during the many weeks which Arthur Vavasour had spent either at the Castle or as a guest of his future father-in-law, Honor had seen a great deal of Miss Duberly’s intended husband. There had been nothing conspicuous or curiosity-rousing in their intimacy. Other gentlemen came and went, and were offered lunch (that meal at the Paddocks was famed far and wide for excellence) by hospitable John Beacham; and other gentlemen might, if they were so disposed, join that pretty, modest-looking little wife of his in her daily rides on the Lady Meg. For how long, or rather for how short a time these two young persons would, under less propitious circumstances, have escaped the heavy censure which their thoughtlessness deserved, it would be hard to say. It was a great thing for both that one at least was but a bird of passage. Very soon (in a few short weeks only), Mr. Vavasour was to be married; and in the mean time there were plenty--a glorious safeguard for endangered reputations--of other things and people, besides the farmer’s wife, to be talked about. There was the _trousseau_ of the bride, the number and beauty of her presents, and--still more immediately interesting to the young of all degrees in that division of Sandyshire--there were the anticipated festivities at Danescourt, in honour, as was almost openly declared by the popular Countess of Guernsey, of Arthur Vavasour’s “coming of age.”