Greatly reassured by this information on the score of her father’s health, Honor, who did not feel much inclined to encourage the young person’s familiarity by questioning her on the subject, entered the drawing-room, and seating herself on the comfortless-looking little sofa, covered with cheap highly glazed chintz, and stuffed with some material very antagonistic to repose, betook herself to not-over-cheerful reflections. For the first few minutes, grief--positive and unmistakeable, at being separated from her husband--filled not only Honor’s heart, but the blue eyes that looked vacantly through the confusing mist at the cheap toys and worthless ornaments with which Mrs. Norcott’s work-table was crowded. Only a few short hours before, how Honor would have ridiculed the supposition that her first act under her father’s roof would be--to cry! In the distance, the coming change had seemed to her a roseate opening between two parted clouds. To escape, though only for a season, from Mrs. Beacham’s despotic rule--to leave behind her the monotony and the dulness, the daily routine of uninteresting duties, and the hourly remindings that her married life had been a blunder--had all in their turn been subjects of rejoicing to Honor. But above all, far and away above all, there was the near prospect that the dream of her life would be at last realised, and that she would take her rightful place amongst the ladies of the land! It is just possible that her introduction to that delusion-expelling front drawing-room in Stanwick-street, was not without its effect in causing a reaction in this aspiring young woman’s mind. Widely different, certainly, from anything that she had previously imagined, was that small, cheaply-furnished chamber! The faded carpet, in the centre of which was spread a brown-holland abomination, called--I have reason to believe--a crumb-cloth; frail painted chairs, whose appearance alone was a wholesome warning to the unwary, that a seat _à la_ Turk upon the floor would be safer than trusting to their frail support; and above all, the cottage piano, with its once rose-coloured silk front discoloured by time and exposure to the blacks and flies of a London lodging-house, formed a _tout ensemble_ widely different from any which Honor’s discursive imagination had hitherto called up. For the moment the unpleasant reality produced on her mind a sobering effect, and with the natural lessening of her former desire to pay a lengthened visit in Stanwick-street, there came an increase of regret that she had allowed her husband to part from her in coldness and estrangement. It was partly--_partly_, indeed! why it was more than half--John’s fault that there was disunion between them; his fault and his mother’s; for who _could_--Honor asked herself, as she had done a hundred times before--who _could_, unless she were an angel born and bred, put up with the daily aggravations of Mrs. Beacham’s temper?