But the tears would not be kept back when it came to saying farewell to the two faithful souls, Jessie and Jason, with whom she had grown up from a girl all legs and wings, and whom she had learnt to regard rather as devoted friends than servants.  Jason broke down completely and hurried away, his old and feeble frame shaking like an autumn leaf; and Jessie, her arms thrown round her young mistress, and with sobs and ejaculations, implored her to take her faithful Jessie with her.

Perhaps the parting with the two dogs was as bitter as any, for, as if they knew quite well that she was going, they clung closely to her, and when she hugged them and kissed them on the forehead, they had to be dragged off by Jason, and locked up in the stables lest they should follow the carriage which was to bear their beloved mistress away.

That carriage came all too soon, though Mr. John Heron had awaited its arrival impatiently and with watch in hand.  He seemed grimmer and gaunter than ever that morning, and as he looked around the great Hall, he shook his head at its faded grandeur reprehensively, as if he could, if time permitted, deliver a sermon on the prodigality, the wicked wastefulness, which had brought ruin on the house, and rendered it necessary for him to extend his charity to the penniless orphan.

Mr. Wordley was there to say good-bye to Ida and put her into the carriage; but it proved a difficult good-bye to say, and for once the usually fluent old lawyer was bereft of the power of speech as he held Ida’s small hand, and looked through tear-dimmed eyes at the white and sorrowful face.  He had intended to say all sorts of kind and encouraging things, but he could only manage the two words, “Good-bye;” and they were almost inaudible.

She sank back into the carriage as it drove away from the Hall, and closed her eyes that she might not see the familiar trees in the avenue, the cattle, everyone of which she knew by name, grazing in the meadow, the pale and woe-begone faces of the servants who stood by the steps to catch the last glimpse of their beloved; and for some time her eyes remained closed; but they opened as she came to the clearing by the lake, from which one could see the long stretching facade of Sir Stephen Orme’s white villa.  She opened them then and looked at the house, wondering whether Stafford was there, wondering why he had not come to her, despite the promise she had exacted from him; wondering whether he knew that her father was dead, and that she was left penniless.

She was not capable of any more tears, and a dull apathy crushed down upon her, so that she did not notice that at the station Mr. John Heron improved the occasion, as he would have put it, by distributing tracts to the station-master and porters.  The journey to London passed as if it were made in a dream; and wearied in mind and body and soul, she found herself, late in the evening, standing in the centre of the Heron’s dreary drawing-room, awaiting her reception by the Heron family.