During all the time that was employed in tastefully arranging the hair whose rich luxuriance scarcely needed the foreign aid of ornament, and in donning the dress fashioned after the _décolletée_ taste of the day, but which Mrs. Norcott--who entertained an unfortunate fancy, common to bony women, of displaying her shoulders for the public benefit--assured her was the _de rigueur costume_ for the theatre,--during all the time that Honor was occupied in making herself ready for the evening’s dissipation, the idea of “living alone” haunted and, while it cheered, oppressed her. Of decided and fixed plans she had none; and whether she would depart on the morrow, leaving no trace to follow of her whereabouts, or whether she would delay her purpose till a few days should have elapsed after her enforced return to Pear-tree House, were subordinate arrangements which this misguided young woman told herself that she would postpone for after consideration. For the moment, the prospect of listening to the most exciting of dramas, and of seeing (for she was easily pleased) the well-dressed audience of a popular theatre, bore their full share in causing the future, as it hung before Honor’s sight, to be confused and misty. The convenient season for thought was to be _after_ this last of her much-prized pleasures; and when this bouquet of the ephemeral delights by which her senses had been so enthralled would be a memory and a vision of the past, the young wife told herself that the time for serious reflection should begin.