Sink or Swim? , Volume I

A fortnight, minus two days, had passed since John Beacham was married, and once more, on the occasion of the return of the bride and bridegroom to their home, all Switcham was on the tiptoe of expectation. At the little wayside station, almost a private one for the accommodation of "the Castle," few trains throughout the day were in the habit of stopping. There was one at 7.10 P. M., a fact to which the time-table and _Bradshaw_, those sworn enemies to indiscreet surprises, bore useful witness; and as by that train the bridal party was by the Switchamites fully expected to arrive, a considerable crowd had (when the down passengers were due) assembled round and about the station, ready, with more heartiness than good taste, to bestow on the returned travellers a noisy and a cordial welcome home.

Meanwhile John and his pretty wife had spent the greater part of the day in London, enjoying, amongst other inexpensive pleasures, the apparently inexhaustible one of looking in at the tempting windows of the West-end shops. It was Saturday afternoon, and the carriages, as was usual on that day, were pretty well filled with passengers. Honor and her husband had already taken their places, the first bell had been rung, and only one seat remained unappropriated in the compartment which they occupied, when a handsome, distinguished-looking young man, whose face Honor thought she had seen before, came slowly sauntering along the platform. He glanced in a careless manner towards the carriages as he passed, but his eye chancing to catch sight of John's honest sun-burnt face, he stopped, and nodding familiarly, asked the latter if there was a vacant place.