The message left by Mr. Vavasour was duly, and indeed with some slight amplification, conveyed by Honor to its destination. Her natural tact had led her to add some of the conventional phrases--a few of the _banal_ expressions of regret which come so “handy” to the use of the kind-hearted and the courteous; but on the matter-of-fact organisation of the “old lady” these little civil emanations from pretty Honor’s brain were completely thrown away, for she was thoroughly “put about” by the departure, without the ceremony of leave-taking, of her young landlord, and nothing that Honor could either say or do possessed, for that day at least, the power of smoothing her ruffled plumage. Had Arthur Vavasour been gifted with the power of taking serious thought of the future, he would have reflected longer before he made an enemy of that pretentiously hospitable old woman. He little dreamt that the seeds of distrust and suspicion were that day sown, by his own act of omission, in Mrs. Beacham’s breast; so true is it that our most trivial acts, our _mignons_ and unnoticed sins, may one day rise up in judgment against us, and be unto us a means of well-merited punishment. That night Honor retired to her own chamber with a very strong sense of ill-usage. She had returned from her walk out of spirits and subdued, but nevertheless she had done her best to be cheerful, had sung her prettiest ballads, and smiled her brightest smiles--but all in vain; Mrs. Beacham had been cross, and her husband, tired with his day’s work, had passed the evening in sound and uninterrupted slumber. Poor little Honor! Sitting there before the looking-glass, her rich brown hair rippling over her shoulders, she could hardly refrain from asking herself whether nature had made her so very beautiful, for _this_. She was beginning to think that, as Arthur Vavasour had once expressed it, she was rather “wasted upon John.” There were _others_ perhaps (I am afraid that Honor was beginning to forget how much she owed to her generous-hearted husband) who might have been better able to appreciate her. There was one--O child, child! dwell not for your life--for your soul’s life’s sake--on that _first thought_ that leads towards the broad road of sin! It may seem a very trifling and unimportant thing that--contrasting in your mind the flattering devotion of a polished gentleman with the unstudied, homely ways of him who, come what come may, is, and must be, your yoke-fellow--that worthy, tired John, who slumbers while you sing, and who seems so utterly to ignore the fact that you are young and fair, has, you may imagine, given you a right by his lumpish somnolence, his unflattering _insouciance_, to consider yourself aggrieved; but, believe me, there is danger in such self-pityings as these. Remember that _le mieux_ is never half so redoubtable an enemy to _le bien_ as when the would-be lover is brought into juxtaposition with the husband, who, secure of his once-coveted