She was a child still in her love for new toys and the pretty trifles that adorn a woman; and almost a child she looked as she stood there stroking the pheasant’s breast (pheasant-plumage was the last new thing in hat-trimmings that had, at this period, found its way to Leigh), and pouting her rosy lip in simulated sorrow. John Beacham was eminently “matter-of-fact,” a quality which goes very far towards the making of common sense. He believed Honor to be really fretting over her feather, and he comforted her accordingly. “Never mind about the hat, Honey,” he said, after pressing his lips on the fresh rounded cheek that was so temptingly at hand. “We’ll go home and get another. Hats and feathers wear twice as long in Sandyshire. The sea air is the deuce and all to pay for spoiling things. What do you say, pet? Shall we see if the weather ain’t better at the Paddocks? This place is all very well, and I’ve been as happy in it--well, as happy as a king, if a king ever is happy, which I’m doubtful of, unless it’s in the honeymoon; but home is home after all, and I--don’t laugh, pet; you’ll feel the same one day yourself--never can manage to feel at home anywhere else.” “I didn’t laugh at you, John,” Honor said, passing her arm coaxingly within her husband’s. “I was only pleased to be going home. I believe I’m just tired of having nothing to do--you know you always called me a busy little body--and besides, I want you to go back to the pretty beasties you are so fond of. There’s Lady Bell; you can’t deny now, John, that you’re dreadfully wrapped up in Lady Bell! I’ve caught you more than once wondering what the baby would be; and then there’s the something Dove--what do you call her?--the beautiful gray mare with the wicked eye, that--” “Never mind the mare,” put in John hastily; “and, Honey, mind this, I’m not wrapped up in anything but you. I shall be glad to see the mares again, but if you care to stay--” “But, John, I don’t care to stay; I would rather, a thousand times, go home; I want to begin my life--our life together--at the Paddocks. And there’s your mother too--your mother must be so lost without you. She said to me the very last thing: ‘Don’t keep John too long away; nothing goes on well without the master’s eye, and time lost isn’t so easy found again.’” John Beacham laughed. There was his mother all over in those trite sentences. It was so like her, too, to mix up business with the _fade_ sentimentality (as the old woman, had she known the words, would have termed it) of the wedding-day.