John Beacham, although he had not been behindhand in admiring Honor’s beauty, was too busy, and owned too little of a sentimental nature, to fall in love with her at first sight. She was such a mere child, too, compared to himself. He, a man of thirty-five, weather-beaten, and with lines upon his brow, to say nothing of a rare gray hair or two that his old mother viewed with pain cropping out in his thick brown whiskers, was many a year too old to mate himself with that bright bud of beauty. But though steady John Beacham was wise enough in his calmer moments, and when safe from the glamour of Honor Blake’s blue eyes, to remember these salutary facts, it was altogether a different affair when he chanced to meet her, looking so brightly pretty, walking with the farmer’s children in the shady lanes, or when the little lake, on the borders of Clay’s Farm, was ice-bound in the cold December weather, making a sunny spot where her sweet radiant face was seen amongst the busy skaters. There is no need to dwell upon the not very remarkable particulars of this rustic courtship. John was Honor’s first lover--the first that she had ever thought or read of. Marriage--an affair to which she, like every girl of sense, of course looked forward to--seemed a pleasant, an exciting, and an important event in life. It would be delightful to have new clothes, and a home and children of her own; for Honor was very fond of, as well as patient with, little people; and perhaps her satisfaction at her approaching marriage was more closely connected with thoughts of baby-smiles and “waxen touches” than the girl herself, in her pure and perfect innocence, suspected. Be that as it may, she did not hesitate, no, not for a single moment, ere she said “yes” in answer to John Beacham’s offer; nor afterwards, when the hour for reflection came, did she feel one pang of regret for the unqualified assent that she had given. They were to be married in May--as John arranged before he left the small old-fashioned “company” parlour at Mr. Clay’s farm, in which this important chapter in the joint lives of himself and Honor had been opened. To be married in May,--that is to say, in two months’ time,--and not a word imparted as yet to the one so vitally interested in the matter--not a hint of what was going on dropped to the “old lady” at Updown Paddocks!