Read "Sink or Swim? , Volume II" by Matilda Charlotte Houstoun online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
A good deal to her surprise, as well as not a little to her relief, / Honor was informed by the parlour-maid -- who struck her, even at a / cursory glance, to be rather pert and forward -- that neither Colonel / Norcott nor his wife were at home. Mrs. Norcott was "gone for a walk," / Miss Lydia said (she was only Polly to the gentleman lodger). Mrs. / Beacham had not been expected by such an early train, and she (Lydia) / _knowed_ -- at least, so she had heard the Colonel say -- that _he_ was / obliged to go out on business.
Greatly reassured by this information on the score of her father's / health, Honor, who did not feel much inclined to encourage the young / person's familiarity by questioning her on the subject, entered the / drawing-room, and seating herself on the comfortless-looking little / sofa, covered with cheap highly glazed chintz, and stuffed with some / material very antagonistic to repose, betook herself to / not-over-cheerful reflections. For the first few minutes, / grief -- positive and unmistakeable, at being separated from her / husband -- filled not only Honor's heart, but the blue eyes that looked / vacantly through the confusing mist at the cheap toys and worthless / ornaments with which Mrs. Norcott's work-table was crowded. Only a few / short hours before, how Honor would have ridiculed the supposition that / her first act under her father's roof would be -- to cry! In the distance, / the coming change had seemed to her a roseate opening between two parted / clouds. To escape, though only for a season, from Mrs. Beacham's / despotic rule -- to leave behind her the monotony and the dulness, the / daily routine of uninteresting duties, and the hourly remindings that / her married life had been a blunder -- had all in their turn been subjects / of rejoicing to Honor. But above all, far and away above all, there was / the near prospect that the dream of her life would be at last realised, / and that she would take her rightful place amongst the ladies of the / land!