Sink or Swim? , Volume II

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!