“Oh, Howard, I must seem to you very ungrateful,” she cried.  “It was such a—­such a surprise.  I have never lived in the country, and I’m sure it will be delightful—­and much more healthful than the city.  Won’t you forgive me?”

If he had known as much about the fluctuations of the feminine temperament as of those of stocks, the ease with which Honora executed this complete change of front might have disturbed him.  Howard, as will be seen, possessed that quality which is loosely called good nature.  In marriage, he had been told (and was ready to believe), the wind blew where it listed; and he was a wise husband who did not spend his time in inquiry as to its sources.  He kissed her before he helped her out of the carriage.  Again they crossed the North River, and he led her through the wooden ferry house on the New Jersey side to where the Rivington train was standing beside a platform shed.

There was no parlour car.  Men and women—­mostly women—­with bundles were already appropriating the seats and racks, and Honora found herself wondering how many of these individuals were her future neighbours.  That there might have been an hysterical element in the lively anticipation she exhibited during the journey did not occur to Howard Spence.

After many stops,—­in forty-two minutes, to be exact, the brakeman shouted out the name of the place which was to be her home, and of which she had been ignorant that morning.  They alighted at an old red railroad station, were seized upon by a hackman in a coonskin coat, and thrust into a carriage that threatened to fall to pieces on the frozen macadam road.  They passed through a village in which Honora had a glimpse of the drug store and grocery and the Grand Army Hall; then came detached houses of all ages in one and two-acre plots some above the road, for the country was rolling; a very attractive church of cream-coloured stone, and finally the carriage turned sharply to the left under an archway on which were the words “Stafford Park,” and stopped at a very new curbstone in a very new gutter on the right.

“Here we are!” cried Howard, as he fished in his trousers pockets for money to pay the hackman.

Honora looked around her.  Stafford Park consisted of a wide centre-way of red gravel, not yet packed, with an island in its middle planted with shrubbery and young trees, the bare branches of which formed a black tracery against the orange-red of the western sky.  On both sides of this centre-way were concrete walks, with cross-walks from the curbs to the houses.  There were six of these—­three on each side—­standing on a raised terrace and about two hundred feet apart.  Beyond them, to the northward, Stafford Park was still a wilderness of second-growth hardwood, interspersed with a few cedars.