Honor could not perceive any outward change, she said; and in the matter of temper, the subject being a delicate one to discuss with her husband, she deemed it wisest to hold her peace. To her great relief, unsuspecting John was too sleepy to pursue the subject, and in a few minutes his deep regular breathing was the only sound that broke the stillness of that large old-fashioned bedchamber. Honor was what is called a light sleeper, and the early birds had begun to twitter in the branches before her eyes were closed in slumber. She was but eighteen however, and therefore sleep, when it did steal over her senses, was dreamless and refreshing. Under twenty-five, all our material acts, when they are done at all, are done so thoroughly! CHAPTER XIX. ARTHUR RECEIVES ABSOLUTION. Arthur Vavasour had, as the reader has already learned, found little difficulty in persuading the kind-hearted, unsuspicious man whose colossal fortune had been made in the manufacturing districts, and who entertained exalted ideas (very convenient ones on this occasion) of the honour of a high-born English gentleman, that he, Arthur Vavasour, was entirely free from spot or blemish, or any such thing as regarded his future son-in-law’s intimate acquaintance with John Beacham and his two yearlings. Old Dub, as he was familiarly called, inhabited, during his annual sojourn in the country, a magnificent “mansion” on the western borders of Sandyshire. It was an abode that had once belonged to a Duke, and princely hospitality had been, during the residence of the aforesaid nobleman, for a lengthened period dispensed within the noble walls of Fairleigh Manor. His Grace, however, coming--according to nineteenth-century slang--“to grief,” the place was degraded to the hammer, being purchased by the solvent Mr. Duberly for a sum that would have liquidated any debts save those of a Duke or a crowned head, but which was barely sufficient to satisfy the more clamorous creditors of the quondam owner of Fairleigh.