But, in addition to this, there were other and peculiar reasons why Honor should be unsettled, at least, if not discontented, in her mind. She had made the discovery that, in more ways than one, that excellent John, of whom before marriage she had comparatively seen so little, was unsuited to her! Beyond a mutual liking to be out of doors, and a decided fondness for dogs and horses, Honor could not perceive that they had a single taste in common. He liked music after a fashion; that is to say, it gave him pleasure to hear her sing a simple ballad, such as “The banks of Allan Water,” or the “Soldier’s Tear”--old-world songs, of which he liked to listen to the words when Honor took especial pains clearly to enunciate them for his benefit. Of modern poetry--of the “whispered balm,” the “music spoken,” which thrilled through Honor’s bright and teeming fancy to her heart--John Beacham was profoundly ignorant. Of Tennyson he knew little, save his name; while of the beauties of Longfellow he was as ignorant as of the scattered pages of the Sibyl’s prophecies. Now it chanced that this pretty, ambitious Honor, who, pending any positive information concerning her birth, had _thought_ herself into the belief that she was born a “lady,” had arrived at the not wholly irrational conviction that her husband’s literary tastes (for a gentleman) might with advantage be more extended and refined. She was angry with herself for having come to this conclusion. John was so kind and thoughtful, so tender of her feelings, and so unwearied in his efforts to amuse her, that Honor felt quite wicked to have discovered in him even one shortcoming; and the consciousness that she was not so happy as he hoped to see her made the poor child feel positively guilty. That dear, good John! How kindly he had taken her about! What a number of excursions (getting wet through more than once in consequence) he had indulged her in! And if the weather had been but fine, would there have been a single nook, both in the Island and outside it, that the newly-married pair would not, during the passing of those uneventful days, have made acquaintance with? If the weather had but been fine! Ay, there was the rub; but there also lay, in some sort, the way out of their difficulties. “I was thinking how unlucky we have been,” Honor said, when the quick blush had faded from her cheek, and the glance of deprecation had been withdrawn. “Not one single fine day have we had since we left Sandyshire! I wonder if it has rained and blown so much at home. O my poor feather!” she murmured piteously (for they were by this time within the narrow entrance of their cottage lodging, and Honor had taken off the little hat with which the wind and spray had been making havoc, and was twirling it with an air of half-comic dismay upon her fingers),--“my poor feather! and such a beauty as it was when it came home from Leigh!”