The absence of refinement in her husband’s manners and mode of speech had never struck Honor so vividly as on the occasion of her return to Pear-tree House after the ten days which she had passed at the Bell. The room in which her father had lain there was but a poor one; smaller and far less comfortably furnished than the nuptial chamber at the farm. The little room, too, near to it, which had been appointed for her especial use, and where, lying awake in the silent watches of the night, she had wept and wondered, so passing strange was the mutation that a turn in the wheel of Fortune had brought about, was scarcely larger than a closet; but it was near her father! “Father!” what a sweet sound it had for her, that word, and new as it was sweet. Twenty times a day did she repeat it in a soft caressing whisper, that only her own heart could hear; and very tender grew the large blue eyes, gazing on the nobly-shaped head, lying so still and motionless upon the hard inn-pillow. It was not till two days and nights had elapsed since the accident, and Colonel Fred Norcott was pronounced on the road to convalescence, that Honor found either time or inclination to notice the, to her, wondrous elegance and refinement of the sick man and his surroundings. Once perceived, she was never weary of admiring what was to her so new, and so in harmony with her own natural tastes. The very sound of her parent’s voice, low and measured, the almost womanly beauty of his _soignées_ hands, the marvellous details of his dressing-case, his ivory hair-brushes; why had not John a dressing-case, and beautiful handles like those, instead of--but what need is there to dwell either on honest John’s shortcomings, or on the thousand and one details which, absurd and improbable as it may seem, went far towards working a revolution in Honor’s feelings, and sent her back to her husband’s side an altered and a worse than discontented woman. Worse than discontented, inasmuch as the change which had been wrought in her was beyond her own control either to modify or to conceal; worse than discontented, in that it was scarcely likely that this newly-born fastidiousness would be less than fatal to the conjugal happiness of which there had been once so fair a promise in the quiet prosperous home of Updown Paddocks. CHAPTER XV. COLONEL NORCOTT FEELS PATERNAL.