Arthur had truly said that Honor knew but little of the world. She had heard and read scarcely anything of love and lovers, but her woman’s instinct warned her, as it would have warned any delicate-minded woman, that this confidence on Vavasour’s part was one of which he ought to be ashamed. Nature had given her a loyal heart, and it was _not_ loyal--there especially, and almost as it were within earshot of the girl who trusted him--to confide to her his repugnance to a marriage from which he owned he was to “suck out no small advantage.” Her judgment might be warped by her pity and by the pride she took in Arthur’s companionship, but nothing could, in her eyes, totally excuse him; and moreover she was too thoroughly womanly not to feel some compassion for the girl who was to be the joint victim of Mr. Vavasour’s necessities. It was this compassion, this truly feminine feeling for one whose sorrows she was so well able to understand, that prompted Honor’s reply, and encouraged her to be brave. “I don’t like to hear you talk in this way, Mr. Vavasour,” she said, her heart beating rather quickly as she summoned all her resolution to her aid. “It isn’t right--indeed, indeed it isn’t. If you do not love this poor young lady, you ought never to have said it--to me--to anyone--not even to yourself. What good _can_ it do now to say such things? Nothing--you know it can’t; and besides, you will be happy, I am sure you will, after you are married--I--” “Are _you_ so very happy?” he said meaningly, and stopping in his walk to look into the depths of her violet eyes. “Are you certain, from your own experience, that happiness _must_ follow after marriage?” She turned away. “You have no right to ask these questions,” she said hurriedly. “Mr. Vavasour, I _ask_ you--beg you not to say such things to me! Why will you do it,” she added imploringly, “when you know how much it vexes and annoys me?” He was quieted in a moment; brought for the nonce, by the sight of her unfeigned distress, to a sense of his misconduct, and said quite humbly: “I am very sorry; I will not offend you again--never! But at least let us part friends. We are quite near the people and the tent now. Give me one moment before you go back to be happy. Only say that you forgive me; say that you will think kindly of me, and wish me well when I am far away.” “I _shall_ think of you--I do wish you well,” she stammered out, not relaxing her pace, but advancing steadily towards the place where, about ten minutes before (for her interview with Vavasour, long as it has taken to relate, had occupied no greater space of time), she had left that, in her own opinion, important personage, Mrs. Beacham, seated under the branches of a spreading lime-tree, listening to village scandal from the lips of a congenial gossip.