They were within a mile or two only of Leigh before the silence that reigned between them was broken, and then it was John’s clear and rather loud voice that awoke the elderly sleeper, and startled Honor from a very perplexing and wretched train of thought. “Twelve o’clock, all but two minutes,” Mr. Beacham said, replacing a solid silver watch in his waistcoat-pocket. “We shall be at Leigh directly, and if there doesn’t happen to be a fly there,” he added, addressing himself more particularly to his wife, “we shall have to put up at the Dragon. The old lady expects _me_, and Simmons will be there, of course, with the trap; but you’d catch your death o’ cold without wraps, and--” “O, I don’t mind! What _does_ it signify?” Honor said impatiently, and even, as it seemed to John, a trifle crossly: whereas the hasty-sounding words were simply the result of the broken reverie, the seriousness of which made the question of a covering more or less upon her shoulders appear in the light of a very trivial affair indeed. Before, however, he could make any rejoinder to her impetuously-spoken reply the speed began to slacken, and a loud deafening “whistle” proclaimed the fact that their journey’s end was reached, and that unless something like a miracle were wrought in her favour, a very short period of time must in the common course of things elapse before poor Honor would find herself once more in the dreaded presence of her exacting and unloving mother-in-law. “Now, then, my dear,” John said _kindly_, as Honor thought and hoped, when he returned to the train after a rapid investigation of the waiting carriages; “now, then, come along! look sharp; there is a fly--the one from the Dragon--so bundle in. It wouldn’t have done,” he went on, after they were seated, and the windows closed to shut out the night air, “to have kept mother up while I sent for this old rattletrap from the inn. Mother’s put out enough as it is, and I don’t know--upon my soul, I don’t--how she’ll take our coming in upon her like this. I tell you what it is, Honor, my dear, you must try--indeed you must--to pull better with the old lady. I thought you would at first; but somehow everything seems to have gone wrong; and then this business--this staying in London--and--”