“I am so sorry we interrupted you,” she was beginning, when a voice and step behind her checked the words upon her lips. “Arthur!” she exclaimed joyfully. “Ah, I was sure it was you! I thought you would come! But how late it is!” And her two hands were held out for his acceptance joyfully. His own were in hers, though, as Horace saw at once, he looked worn and worried, when he perceived, though she had turned away on his arrival, the presence there of Honor Beacham. Men, even the most practised ones, are, when compared to women, poor dissemblers; so it need cause no surprise that while Arthur Vavasour started, and displayed a momentary agitation, Honor, on the contrary, betrayed not the slightest sign or token of emotion. It might be that the very emergency of the case gave her courage to play a part, for she guessed at once, from the tone and manner of her greeting, that the affable young lady was Mr. Vavasour’s promised bride, and--stronger reason still for showing a fearless front--_she_, the petted, prosperous wife, had no guilty feelings to conceal, no cause to shrink from the inquiring gaze either of friend or foe. She was very glad to see her friend, but she would have been better pleased had their meeting been on horseback in the quiet lanes, or on foot in the old-fashioned home-garden, where the pinks and roses were in the full glory of their summer beauty. She had vaguely expected another meeting there--not yet awhile, but when Arthur should come home again, after the months she heard he meant to spend in foreign travel, and when he would talk to her of all the curious sights that he had seen, and all the marvellous adventures that had fallen to his lot. Half in sadness, half in hope, Honor had indulged in all innocence this dream. She had grown accustomed to his absence as to an inevitable necessity; had taught herself to think of him as one to whom she had said (for the time at least) a last “farewell;” and behold! there he was again,--tall, handsome, with those tender caressing eyes looking, despite his future bride’s presence, into hers, and the hand, the long-lingering pressure of which she remembered, alas, too well, holding, for one _speaking_ second, her own within its clasp. “We have been interrupting Mrs. Beacham, who was good-naturedly amusing the children,” said Horace. “They were as merry as any little beggars could be, weren’t they, Lady Margaret? before we came, and now they look as if butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths.” “Won’t it?” said Arthur, laughing--he was always good-natured to children, and especially to those that he had seen Honor pet. The little Clays he was acquainted with, both personally and individually, and it was even on record at the farm that the young Squire had given that ne’er-do-weel boy Tommy his first lesson in the noble game of cricket. “What, tired already! I never saw such idle brats! Here, you Tommy, run and fetch the balls.”