To this very natural supposition Honor made no reply, save by a little inward shiver, which was patent only to herself. At that moment, the appalling fact that the home _for life_ which she had made for herself was one thoroughly unsuited to her tastes as well as feelings, broke with its fullest force upon John Beacham’s wife. She felt--God forgive her for her ingratitude!--that she positively loathed the idea of returning to the companionship of her mother-in-law--to the _mesquin_, wearisome talk of household economies, of the shortcomings of serving-maids, the failure of a “baking,” or the “coming in two,” in careless Jane’s or Sally’s hands, of jug or basin. How soon, or if ever, but for _two_ adventitious contingencies (the contingencies, namely, of her mother-in-law’s disagreeableness, and the converse as regarded her friend Arthur Vavasour), Honor would have made the discovery that her life was a spoiled and miserable one, it would be hard to say. Not for any imaginable consideration would she have been willing that the dear old lady, whose kindness and gentleness and refinement had so won upon her heart and fancy, should obtain any, even the faintest, inkling of her state of mind. It was bad enough to be discontented, vile enough to wish the past undone, her marriage with that devoted and excellent John a dream of the past, and herself free to love and wed in a sphere more congenial to her tastes--_the_ sphere, in short, to which she was in a manner born. All this, I repeat, was odious and wicked enough; and Honor, feeling it to be thus wicked and odious, was naturally desirous of being herself the only confidante of the sad secrets of her untamed and inexperienced heart. CHAPTER XII. “THERE’S GOOD, AFTER ALL, IN HER.”