Some such thoughts as these--selfish, self-pitying, wicked thoughts--were passing through Arthur Vavasour’s mind when Colonel Norcott met him on the course, and lightly talked to him of his love. And since that moment,--while joining groups of acquaintances, uttering unmeaning love-speeches into the ear of his betrothed, or endeavouring to assume an interest which he felt not in the fate of Farmer Scroop’s rat-tailed trotter--he never for many moments together lost mental sight of Honor Beacham, never ceased to remember that at any turn of the road, under any spreading tree--where smiles and merriment, and the ringing sounds of youthful voices, and the pretty colouring of woman’s dress gave life and animation, he might chance to see his lovely Honor, and there perchance betray, by an unguarded word or look, to other eyes than Norcott’s the secret of his heart. But if Arthur Vavasour thought a good deal during those swiftly passing hours of Honor Beacham, that rather _insouciante_ young woman did not (a fact which, had he known it, would not have greatly improved the temper of her admirer) trouble her pretty little head much about him. That she should not so have done (albeit Mr. Vavasour stood foremost in her mind as the finished type of all that was handsome, agreeable, and accomplished) is very easily to be accounted for. The scene to Honor was so deliciously new, and so untiringly interesting. Never, during that short life of hers, had she witnessed anything so gay, so grand, or so fascinating. In the dresses of the ladies alone she could have feasted her unaccustomed eyes for hours; and when to these was added the charm of their contagious laughter, and the latent enjoyment of knowing herself to be both observed and admired, can we wonder that Honor should scarcely have found time to greatly regret the absence of her friend? Once, indeed, she thought of him; thought of him too very sadly, as of one who was far away, and whom it might be very long, years perhaps, before she met again. It was the sound of the trumpets and trombones, the brazen serpents and the wailing cornets, that touched the minor chord of melancholy in her impulsive breast. The band had been (with the regiment to which it belonged) to the Russian war, and the perfume of glory, for those simple Sandyshire people, hung--though many a year had passed since their return from “foreign parts”--about those military musicians still. The air they played was that sad, yet stirring parting one, that plaintive _Partant pour la Syrie_, which has so often fallen upon loving hearts as the knell of buried hopes, the echo of farewells between young loving hearts doomed never to meet this side the grave for ever. Honor listened in dreamy silence to “the lengthened sweetness long drawn out” of the suggestive notes, and then, in spite of surrounding merriment and the shouts of boisterous mirth, the tears rose to her long lashes, and but for very shame she could have turned aside to weep.