“Well, well,” she said, with the sigh peculiar to elderly ladies when they are about to _se poser en victimes_,--“well, well! I suppose that what is to be will be. In course, it isn’t for old folks like me to give advice to young ones. The weak must go to the wall, as it’s only right, I suppose, and nat’ral they should; and them as has had their day must just make room, like the trees and the plants as is withered away, for others. I only hope, that’s all I have to say, that she’ll make you a good wife, John; and if so be she does, why I’m not one--be sure of that--to be set against her. But it’s hard lines all the same, so it is. ‘A son’s not your son,’ as the saying goes, ‘when he takes him a wife.’ No, he’s not your son--come what come may.” And Mrs. Beacham, after solacing herself with the utterance of this soothing reflection, took herself off quietly to bed. CHAPTER IV. MRS. BEACHAM “RUNS RUSTY.” It was, as I before said, the day previous to that appointed for the wedding, and Mrs. Beacham, feeling slightly bemuddled and restless, and being withal half, and only half, reconciled to her son’s marriage, was passing a quiet hour in the large old-fashioned kitchen-garden, which had formed for the best part of half a century her glory and her pride. In the days before John’s engagement to Honor Blake, and when the mother and son together ruled the household in harmony, and with a prudent yet not illiberal hand, Mrs. Beacham had been remarkable for a quiet cheerfulness of disposition and--making allowance for occasional outbreaks--for a kindly temper. The world had hitherto gone well with her, and she--in common gratitude bound--had gone well with the world. What wonder was it, then, that Updown Paddocks, with its cheery, hospitable mistress, and with “young John,” so pleasant as he was, and open-handed, came to be well appreciated as a “good house,” to use a rustic but expressive phrase, throughout the whole country side?