Sink or Swim? , Volume II by Matilda Charlotte Houstoun

The preparations for Honor's departure went on rapidly at Pear-tree / House. Her wardrobe, for her station in life, was a tolerably extensive / one; but besides that her stay in London was expected to be short, there / was this simplifying fact as regarded the packing of Mrs. John Beacham's / things -- namely, that she possessed no evening dresses. Handsome silk / gowns (_gownds_, Mrs. Beacham called them) she owned in plenty; but they / were made high, as became a decent female to wear them, and would have / been pronounced ridiculously _rococo_ in a London drawing room, where / the female figure divine is displayed _à toute outrance_, and where / nearly as much (anatomically speaking) may be learned of that / _chef-d'œuvre_ of Nature's workmanship as may be picked up in the / dissecting-room or in the most _décolleté_ statuary display in Europe.

Honor watched and superintended, and indeed aided, in the packing up of / her belongings like a woman in a dream. It seemed so strange, now the / time was drawing near for her to depart, that she was actually going / away from John. There was such a sense of protection in his / presence -- the sense of trust which all women feel, and love to feel, in / the support of a good and brave man -- that Honor began to be very / miserable at the thought of bidding good-bye to her husband. Even after / they had left the house, she would have given much, as she sat by his / side in the trap, to have been able to say to him that she was sorry to / leave the Paddocks. Had she seen a token of softness on his countenance, / she would have opened out her heart to her true friend. But there was no / such sign. Stolidly, and with his eyes never turned for a single moment / on the sweet face beside him, John drove along the well-known road. He / little dreamt of the softened thoughts, the half-formed wishes, that / were welling up in Honor's heart. He only knew that by her own wish she / was about to leave him, about to leave his protection for that of the / father who was so utterly unworthy of the trust. Ah, could he then but / have looked into the vain foolish heart which yet, with all its vanity / and folly, contained in it some elements of good, how changed might have / been poor Honor's lot, and what a chance of future peace and safety, if / not of the ecstatic happiness of which simple women dream, might have / been hers!