As he spoke, the door opened and the original of the portrait on the wall entered, followed by her daughter Isabel.  Ida rose from the bumpy sofa and saw a thin, harassed-looking woman, more faded even than the portrait, and a tall and rather a good-looking girl whose face and figure resembled, in a vague, indefinite way, those of both her father and mother; but though she was not bad-looking, there was a touch of vulgarity in her widely opened eyes, with a curious stare for the newcomer, and in her rather coarse mouth, which appalled and repelled poor Ida; and she stood looking from one to the other, trying to keep her surprise and wonder and disapproval from revealing themselves through her eyes.  She did not know that these two ladies, being the wife and daughter of a professional man, considered themselves very much the superior of their friends and neighbours, who were mostly retired trades-people or “something in the city;” and that Mrs. Heron was extremely proud of her husband’s connection with the Herons of Herondale, and was firmly convinced that she and her family possessed all the taste and refinement which belong to “the aristocracy.”

A simpler and a homelier woman would have put her arm round the girl’s neck and drawn her towards her with a few loving words of greeting and welcome; but Mrs. Heron only extended a hand, held at the latest fashionable angle, and murmured in a languid and lackadaisical voice: 

“So you have come at last, my dear Miss Heron!  Your train must have been very late, John; we have been expecting you for the last hour, and I am afraid the dinner is quite spoilt.  But anyway, I am glad to see you.”

“Thank you,” said poor Ida.

It was Isabel’s turn, and she now came forward with a smile that extended her mouth from ear to ear, and in a gushing manner said, in staccato sentences: 

“Yes, we are so glad to see you!  How tired you must be!  One always feels so dirty and tumbled after a long journey.  You’ll be glad of a wash, Miss Heron.  But there!  I mustn’t call you that; it sounds so cold and formal!  I must call you Ida, mustn’t I?  ‘Ida!’ It sounds such an odd name; but I suppose I shall get used to it in time.”

“I hope so,” said poor Ida, trying to smile and speak cheerfully and amiably, as Miss Isabel’s rather large hand enclosed round hers; but she looked from one to the other with an appalling sensation of strangeness and aloofness, and a lump rose in her throat which rendered the smile and any further speech on her part impossible; and as she looked from the simpering, lackadaisical mother to the vulgar daughter with meaningless smile, she asked herself whether she was really awake, whether this room was indeed to be her future home, and these strange people her daily companions, or whether she was only asleep and dreaming, and would wake to find the honest face of Jessie bending over her, and to see the familiar objects of her own room at Heron Hall.