while, Honora, it won't do any harm," he added. "You have a way with you,
you know,--when you want to."

Honora grew scarlet.

"Howard!" she exclaimed.

He looked somewhat shamefaced.

"Well," he said, "I was only joking. Don't take it seriously. But it
doesn't do any harm to be polite."

"I am always polite," she answered a little coldly.

Honeymoons, after all, are matters of conjecture, and what proportion of
them contain disenchantments will never be known. Honora lay awake for a
long time that night, and the poignant and ever recurring remembrance of
her husband's remark sent the blood to her face like a flame. Would
Peter, or George Hanbury, or any of the intimate friends of her childhood
have said such a thing?

A new and wistful feeling of loneliness was upon her. For some days, with
a certain sense of isolation and a tinge of envy which she would not
acknowledge, she had been watching a group of well-dressed, clean-looking
people galloping off on horseback or filling the six-seated buckboards.
They were from New York--that she had discovered; and they did not mix
with the others in the hotel. She had thought it strange that Howard did
not know them, but for a reason which she did not analyze she hesitated
to ask him who they were. They had rather a rude manner of staring
--especially the men--and the air of deriving infinite amusement from