She had been told by her cousin, as they drove in a four-wheeled cab through the depressing streets of a London suburb, that the family consisted of his wife and a son and a daughter; that the son’s name was Joseph and the daughter’s Isabel; that Joseph was a clerk in the city, and that Isabel was about the same age as Ida.

“We are a very quiet family,” Mr. Heron had said, “and you will no doubt miss the space and grandeur of Heron Hall, but I trust we are contented and happy, and that though our means are limited, our sphere of usefulness is wider than that of some wealthier people.  My wife is, unfortunately, an invalid, and requires constant care and attention; but I have no doubt she will find strength to bear any fresh burden which Providence may see fit to put upon her.  Though our circumstances are comfortable, we are not surrounded by the luxuries which so often prove a stumbling-block to weaker brethren.  I trust you may be happy in our humble home, and that you may find some opportunity of usefulness in this new state of life to which you are called.”

Ida tried to remember all this as she stood in the centre of the drawing-room and looked round upon the modern but heavy and ugly objects with which it was furnished.

The room was seedy and shabby, but with a different seediness and shabbiness from that of Heron Hall; for there was an attempt to conceal its loss of freshness with antimacassars, large in size and hideous of pattern.  A grim and ugly portrait of Mr. John Heron occupied a great portion of one of the walls, and was confronted by a portrait, of a similar size, of his wife, a middle-class woman of faded aspect and languishing expression.  The other pictures were of the type that one usually sees in such houses; engravings printed from wornout plates, and third-class lithographs.  There was a large sofa covered with dirty cretonne, and with a hollow in the middle showing that the spring had “gone;” the centre-table was adorned by several well-known religious books arranged at regular intervals.  A cage containing a canary hung between the curtains in the window, and the bird, a wretched-looking animal—­it was moulting—­woke up at their entrance and shrilled in the hateful manner peculiar to canaries.  This depressing room was lit by one gas-burner, which only permitted Ida to take in all that had been described but vaguely and dimly.

She looked round aghast and with a sinking of the heart.  She had never been in any room like this before, and its lack of comfort, its vulgarity, struck upon her strained nerves like a loud discordant note in music; but its owner looked round complacently and turned the gas a little higher, as he said: 

“I will go and fetch your cousin.  Won’t you sit down?”