Unfortunately for the success of their trip the weather proved very unfavourable for honeymooning. The sun that had shone so brightly that glad May-day at “home” seemed to have entirely forsaken the sea-shore, along which John Beacham and his wife, for variety’s sake, sometimes turned their steps. To judge of weather matters from the severity of the cold, and the force with which the strong north-eastern blew upon “the Island,” a second and a sterner winter than the last was visiting the earth. The early leaves, nipped by the severity of the blast, hung brown and withered on the twigs. Noses were suggestively roseate, warm shawls were gathered closely round shivering forms, and the face of Nature was, as it were, hidden behind a cloud. Honor was very far from being a literary character; and yet--melancholy to relate--she had not been more than three days a wife when she found herself regretting that John was not more of a reading man. He could not be called a dull companion, for he took a _real_ interest in the talk of others, was easily amused, and both his remarks and replies were sensible and to the purpose; but for all this, and though the scene and their position were new, time--there could be no doubt about _that_ fact--did hang heavy at Ryde both with Honor and her husband. Sooth to say, the latter was rather like a fish out of water at that sea-side watering-place. The journey and the voyage thither, with that exquisite Honor by his side, had been simply delicious, and the coming fortnight would, he had doubted not, pass as a too short hour of perfect and hitherto undreamt-of bliss. Too soon, however, the active-minded man, to whom absence of employment was such an entirely novel phase of existence, discovered that his short dream on the deck of the Ryde steamer was not destined to be realised. His beautiful Honor was not one whit less perfect, nor was his conviction that he was the happiest of men less firm, than when he led her first within the gates of Paradise: but--and there, in a word, lay the true cause of the evil--Ryde was not Updown Paddocks--not the place where the interests of his life had so long been centred; not the spot where the brood-mares, plump and matronly, and the young stock, wild with youth and spirits, met his eyes at every turn as he took his daily walks; not the spot, in short, where, at every moment of his life, he had something to do, to think of, and to project. Not to mince the matter, John Beacham--dearly and passionately as he loved his wife--was, at the end of ten days’ holiday-time, sick to death of the place to which he and Honor had betaken themselves to be happy. Never in all his life had he found the days so long, never in his experience had the wind howled and the sleet pelted during spring-time as it did at Ryde during that memorable fortnight in the so-called “merrie” month of May.