The idea of obeying her mother-in-law’s behests, and returning with the least possible delay, did not, after the first shock of reading the letter, either form any portion of Honor’s thoughts, or tend in any degree to increase her troubles. Go, till she had fulfilled one or two of her remaining engagements, she _would not_. To that conclusion she had come at _first_, and being one of those exceptional characters--characters, I suspect, more fanciful than real--whom a silken thread can lead, but who, like the Celtic animal that shall be nameless, turn restive when coercion is the order of the day, young Mrs. Beacham, resenting the old lady’s tone of authority, set herself, with a determination of which one short year before she never would have believed herself capable, against that distasteful dose, the swallowing of which she knew (none better) to be her duty. Perhaps--we do not say it would have been so--but perhaps had _John_ written to her, even angrily, this wrong-headed, but still warm-hearted, young woman might have been a trifle more amenable to reason, and better disposed to bear with patience the lot that she had drawn; but John, as we well know, did not write to his young wife at this momentous crisis of her life. He was busy. Epsom was at hand. Betting, sporting men were daily finding their way by express trains to the Paddocks, and all John’s interest, time, attention were taken up, so Honor entirely and _half_-gladly believed, by other cares and pleasures than those connected with herself. “He does not trouble himself enough about me either to write or to mind whether I am here or there,” she said with a sigh, as, standing before her small mirror, she noted self-complacently each of the undimmed beauties by which she believed her husband set so little store. “He does not care enough about me to be displeased if I ride with Arthur Vavasour. His mother says so--the tiresome old thing!--but I don’t believe her; and she shall not--no, she _shall_ not--have the satisfaction of thinking she has frightened me into obedience;” and with that doughty resolution Honor descended her many flights of stairs to breakfast with her newly-found and outwardly affectionate relations. CHAPTER VI. WHAT, SELL ROUGH DIAMOND! The breakfast meal at No. 13 Stanwick-street, not being either a varied or a luxurious one, did not occupy much of Colonel Fred Norcott’s valuable time. It commenced, however, frequently at so late an hour, owing to the stay-out habits over night of the master of the house, that twelve o’clock often struck before the table was what Mrs. Norcott called “cleared,” and the room ready for company.