As she dwelt--with the pleasure which under twenty is so often felt in the indulgence of a mournful self-pity--on her unmitigated woes, the idea, once before entertained, and never wholly forgotten, of finding a home for herself--of working for her bread--of escaping from the tyranny, the evil-speaking, the taunts and evil suspicions of her mother-in-law, flashed through her mind. At first, with something very like a shock--for to Honor the leaving of her husband’s house and home appeared (distinction without a difference though it was) a far more adventurous and desperate act than that which she had before, with tolerable calmness, contemplated--the act, that is to say, of separating herself whilst under her father’s roof from the husband who, in her opinion, neither loved, appreciated, nor understood her; from the man who could see her wronged, insulted, and put upon by the hard-tempered old woman, who, from the hour of her introduction to Updown Paddocks, had never ceased to make Honor’s life a misery and a burden to her;--the act and deed of remaining hidden in some obscure London lodging, had, as I said before, seemed simple and easy enough to the young wife when, encouraged and buoyed-up by the devoted attentions of Arthur Vavasour, she vaguely contemplated a future in which Mrs. Beacham had no share, but which was to be cheered by the unfailing friendship (Honor knew so little of men’s nature that she had faith in constancy, and dreamed of friendship as a delicious possibility) of her kind and disinterested adviser. But the prospect before her was a trifle changed by the point of view from which she now contemplated it; and far greater courage and strength of mind seemed required to induce her to leave her husband’s home than had been needed to enable her to stay away from it. As her fever of passion cooled, so did the power within her to take a step so decided and so desperate fade away likewise. Honor’s nature was naturally an indolent one--indolent and yielding. Should she be led, by the force of her own rebellious temper, to do that which would blight her name and ruin her hopes of future happiness, the guilt of that act would lie--as such guilts so often do--more at the door of another than at her own. Already the quiet tears of self-pity and womanly submission were taking the place of hysterical sobs and passionate ejaculations; already she was subsiding into the dull calm which is the natural consequence of over-excitement, when the voice, harsh-sounding and dreaded, of the domestic tyrant--whose will had grown to be law, and whose ways were not as the ways of her young daughter-in-law--smote suddenly on Honor’s sensitive ear, and awoke again within her the evil spirit of resistance. Mrs. Beacham was only, at that unlucky moment, in the exercise of her right; she was but scolding the girl-of-all-work, the female “odd boy” of the establishment, for some trifling neglect of