“O don’t bother about that now,” Kate said impatiently. “I asked you whether you _can_ believe that Rhoda really likes Mr. Wallingford. _I_ can’t fancy his being a lover: horrid creature, I call him! Now, Arthur, do attend one moment. I want to know whether I ought to be glad or sorry that mamma has put an end to the business, and--” “Glad, to be sure,” said Arthur, taking up his gloves, and troubling himself less than was altogether brotherly about poor Rhoda’s first and, as the preoccupied young man considered, thoroughly uninteresting love-affair,--“glad! Why it’s the most disgusting piece of folly I ever heard of. Such bad taste too! But it’s all my mother’s fault. If a gushing young woman like Rhoda had seen some good-looking young fellows every now and then, she would never have got spooney on such a slow prig of a parson as George Wallingford. An excellent young man, I daresay, in his way; but excellent young men haven’t much of a pull in these days, except when girls haven’t anyone else to talk to. Trust me, it won’t be long, if I know anything about such matters, before Miss Rhoda finds another lover ready to knock this spooney fellow out of her head.” And Arthur Vavasour, satisfied with this summary settlement of a question which probably appeared to him in the light of a very commonplace affair indeed, hurried away to his appointment in Stanwick-street--hurried to the presence of the still pure-hearted woman, for the love of whose bright eyes the silly young man was ready to lose his all of peace on earth, the goodwill of friends and kindred, and that much-prized but unexplainable thing for which no other nation save our own can boast even the simple name--the name, that is, of Respectability. CHAPTER III. WHAT WAS HONOR DOING? It was Sunday at the Paddocks,--Sunday afternoon,--rather a ponderous season in the old silent house; and John was, sooth to say, a trifle tired of his own thoughts, to say nothing of the sight of his respectable parent poring, spectacles on nose, over the heavy sermon (a Sabbath duty with her, and a habit which she was far too old to break), that kept her in a blissful doze through two hours at least of that long afternoon of rest. The early dinner was over; and the house being very quiet--no sound more startling than the buzz of the flies upon the window-pane breaking the stillness of the restful time--John Beacham, who had ensconced himself in his big arm-chair, feeling dull enough, poor fellow, without Honor, began to experience not only the influence of the heat but of the Sabbath beef and pudding; and his eyelids, “drawing straws,” as the saying is, closed gradually over the tranquil scenes before him, and the deserted husband found himself in the land of dreams.