“Since _that_? O, Mr. Vavasour, why _did_ you not tell me before? You knew I should care so much to hear it! Think of your having a dear little child!” and she sighed involuntarily, a faint but very mournful sigh (which Arthur fancied in his folly that he comprehended), and then added, with an attempt at playfulness, “Perhaps I may be thought clever enough to teach your children some day; but I must learn a great deal myself first. The Miss Vavasours will want all sorts of accomplishments that a humble nursery governess knows nothing about; and that reminds me--” speaking very quick, as she noted a crimson flush that mounted to her companion’s brow, and a something in his eyes which her woman’s instinct taught her was alarming--“that reminds me that I have no time to lose in looking for the means of providing for myself. I have a good deal of money” (there were exactly seven pounds in her portemonnaie), “but still I want to begin. It will be no trouble to me to teach and take care of children. I love them so dearly; and the little things always take to me.” “It would be strange, I think, if they did not,” Arthur ventured to say, as he gazed with such passionate fondness on her face, that Honor was forced to veil her eyes with their white lids for very shame. “O no, it isn’t that,” she said hastily, and hardly knowing what words were falling from her lips. “You see, I have been so used to them, and--and I cannot bear to be idle. If I have nothing to do, I begin to think--to think of poor John--” Arthur, at this unexpected mention (a very _mal à propos_ one in his opinion) of an absent husband’s name, rose abruptly from his place by Honor’s side. He was very young, very little conversant in the ways and means of defence of such women as Honor, or he would have seen through this simple _ruse_. He would have understood that this beautiful and defenceless creature, with an instinctive dread of her pursuer, had thrown up this rampart against attack, and would have drawn, through that very alarm, good augury for eventual success. It was fortunate for Honor that no such ideas as these entered at that moment the mind of the man who was gradually coming near enough to be--there is no medium course, let women believe in its existence if they will--either accepted or denied. It was well, too, that Arthur, roused by his own movement from the dream of passion in which he had been indulging, once more began to have some thought and memory for outward things, and especially for the lapse of time since he had left his home. Looking hastily at his watch, he perceived to his dismay that it was four o’clock, so swiftly had time passed--is it not ever so?--while he had been occupied by talking about himself, and been busied with his own sentimental interests.