“You must excuse me,” he went on, speaking with the cheery voice and pleasant smile that were among the various causes of the well-known horse-breeder’s popularity,--“you must excuse me for calling you so. I’ve known you ever since you was such a little chap, and your noble father” (John’s ideas of nobility were somewhat confused, inasmuch as the simple fellow was weak enough to believe in the “patent” of a good man who “fears God, and loves his neighbour as himself”)--“your noble father was ‘the Squire’ before you, sir, and we wouldn’t like the title to die out.--I have known this gentleman, my dear,” turning to Honor, who was blushing crimson behind her little coquettish veil, “ever since”--suiting the action to the word--“he was _that_ high.” Arthur laughed. The train was going at express speed now, so that conversation was carried on under difficulties. “You must have had wretched weather during your excursion,” he said, addressing himself less exclusively to Honor than he would have done had she been exactly in his own position in life. He was, as I have more than once said, a very good-looking young gentleman, and being besides unfortunately endowed with the often dangerous gift, described by one of the most brilliant of French novelists as _l’œil à femmes_, he was a little in the habit of _bonnes fortunes_. Honor, too, was looking wonderfully pretty, as she sat opposite, with lowered eyelids, colouring under the pleasing consciousness of being gazed at and admired. Arthur was not much troubled with shyness, but for some reason, or other he did not find it quite easy just then to talk to John Beacham’s wife. “Well, I can’t say that the sun did trouble us much,” John said: “as I told Honor there, she might have left her parasols and sun-shades behind her. Such a fortnight as it’s been I never knew before, for the time of year. We’ve come back a day or two before time; but we were half afraid the old lady would find it dull by herself at the Paddocks, to say nothing of the stock,” he added, laughing. “Honor tells me sometimes that she believes I care more for the mares and foals than I do for kith and kin.” “Ah, now I didn’t say quite that, John,” Honor said in a very low tone; but Arthur caught the words and replied to them: “I’m sure you didn’t, Mrs. Beacham, and John will be forgetting his out-of-door amusements altogether, now that he’s got something better than kith and kin at home. I only wish that we were half as well off at the Castle. The old house has grown more melancholy than ever since I went away. By Jove, what a county it is! No hunting--no neighbourhood--nothing earthly to be done!” “Why don’t you take to breeding?” John asked; “there’s an interest for you at once. Manage one of your own farms, and have plenty of young stock, and, take my word for it, you’ll be all right then.”