Honor wondered to herself, as, with her large garden-hat shading her eyes from the sun, and a flower-basket on her arm, she bent over a favourite plant rich with pinks in brilliant blossom, dropping at the same time one of the treasures into her basket, whether Mr. Vavasour had the least idea what a commotion his coming to the house for half an hour was causing. She caught herself marvelling too whether he liked the smell of roast beef and cabbage: for the house had been redolent of both when Honor gladly exchanged the scene of bustle and confusion, and the aroma of a meal more plentiful than refined, for the fresh air of heaven and the perfumes of the roses and the pinks. She did not hurry over her task. There was time enough before the arrival of their guest for a little more dallying with the flowers, a few more quiet thoughts over how she would look, and what _he_--that half-dreaded new acquaintance--would say to her. Honor had not the slightest intention of complying with the last of her mother-in-law’s injunctions; the “washy” dress--it was of soft blue muslin, and the girl looked like a bright azure flower in it, as she flitted about between the rows of fruit-bushes, culling the dear old “common” flowers that are still to be found in such ancient kitchen-gardens as the one that appertained to Pear-tree House--the “washy” dress that had provoked Mrs. Beacham’s animadversion was not, Honor determined, to be cast aside. Since the affair of the bonnet, she had resisted all attempts at interference with her toilet. The day too, as the sun rose higher and higher in the heavens, had grown oppressively hot, so hot that her fair face was a little flushed, and she loosened the strings of her hat that the light summer breeze might blow more freely round her throat. The coolest spot in all the garden was the terrace-walk, a little raised above the level of a shady lane, into which those above could look over the trimmed sprays of what John--who loved the place, and smoked his quiet pipe there often in the summer evenings--was wont to call the “nightingale hedge.” With Honor too the terrace was a favourite resort: she would take her book there, or her work, and sit dreamily on the rough stone bench for hours, till summoned home by the shrill voice of her mother-in-law, who, being essentially a woman of action, had no patience with the “idle ways of John’s silly chit of a wife.” On that especial day, however, Honor had no time to waste in reverie. She would, she thought only rest for a moment under the shade of the old thorn-tree; the sun shone so glaringly down upon the teeming apple-trees, on the clean-kept rows of strawberry-beds sloping downwards to the gravelled walks, yellow and glowing in the midday heat. Honor could not, however, long remain, pleasant as it was, in that cool breezy place. Only a moment to pluck a sprig of sweet syringa from a shrub of ancient date, growing near the hawthorn-tree; only a moment to hear--Well! What did