“MY DEAR HONOR,--I write this to my great illconvenience, and to tell you that your conduct is not what it ought to be. John is not at home, but he was much surprised, as so was I to hear which we did by accident that you had been seen riding in Hyde Park in the place where I am told the ladies go, that honest women oughtnt to look at with a gentleman. I may as well say who Mr. Arthur Vavasour. Knowing the way you useter go on with that person I am not surprised at this, but John is, and I write to say that I cant have him vexed nor put out, and that you must come back directly and learn to behave yourself, and whats more, make yourself useful as you should do. Of course things wont be pleasant when you do come home, _that_ isnter be expected, but we must take what Godamighty sends, and I knew when John married what it would be. I expect you will come back directly you get this, and I will send Simmons for you with the taxcart to meet the first afternoon train. John besides being so put about with what youve been doing is too busy with his horses to think of going himself.” * * * * * A pleasant missive this to receive at early morning-time, when the recipient’s head, a little turned by flattery and excitement, was full of fresh plans of pleasure, and was sedulously endeavouring to shut out intrusive thoughts of home, and to ignore the conscience-pricks against which it was so hard sometimes to kick! It would have been scarcely possible for the picture of what awaited her in her husband’s dull _chez soi_, to have been brought with more unpleasant force before the luxury-loving, indolent-natured girl, who was becoming hourly more what is called _spoilt_ by the new life that she was leading. At no time greatly drawn towards her mother-in-law (could it well, all things considered, have been otherwise?), Honor, at that inauspicious moment, almost loathed the domineering, hectoring old autocrat, whose ways were so very far from being _her_ ways, and who had thus unscrupulously laid bare to her the treatment that she, Honor, might expect when she should return tardily, and, alas, not over-willingly, to the sphere of the irritated old lady’s dominion. It may seem to some of my readers that the thoughts and feelings, the likings and dislikings of Honor, the married woman, bore but scanty relation to those of the same individual who, when a laughing, light-hearted, unselfish girl, had found it so easy to win, not only golden opinions, but, still surer test of worth, the affections of the small men and women committed to her youthful guardianship. But while making this objection, it is well to remind the critic of the truth, that we none of us show what we really are--either for evil or for good--till we are tried. With youth, and beauty, and good spirits,--petted too and much indulged, albeit she was “only a governess,”--with the lamp of hope burning brightly before her, and with