Ida disliked him at the first glance, and disliked him still more at the second, as she caught his shifty eyes fixed on her with a curious and half-insolently admiring expression.

He came round and shook hands—­his were damp and cold like his father’s—­as Mr. Heron introduced them, and in a voice which unpleasantly matched his face, said that he was glad to see her.

“Tired, Joseph, dear?” murmured his mother, regarding him with a mixture of pride and commiseration.

“Oh, I’m worn out, that’s what I am,” he said, as he sank into a chair and regarded the certainly untempting food with an eye of disfavour.  “Been hard at it all the evening”—­he spoke with a Cockney, city accent, and was rather uncertain about his aspirates—­“I work like a nigger.”

“Labour is prayer,” remarked his father, as if he were enunciating something strikingly original.  “Nothing is accomplished without toil, my dear Joseph.”

My dear Joseph regarded his father with very much the same expression he had bestowed upon the mutton.

“And how do you like London, Cousin Ida?” he asked.

He hesitated before the “Cousin Ida,” and got it out rather defiantly, for there was something in the dignity of this pale, refined face which awed him.  It was perhaps the first time in his life Mr. Joseph had sat at the same table with a lady; for Mr. John Heron had married beneath him, and for money; and in retiring from the bar, at which he had been an obvious failure, had sunk down to the society of his wife’s class.

“I have seen so little of it,” replied Ida.  “I have only passed through London twice, on my way from France to Herondale, and from Herondale here.”  Mr. Joseph was duly impressed by the sound of Herondale.

“Oh, you must tell me all about your old home,” he said, with an air of overconfidence to conceal his nervousness; “and we must show you about London a bit; it’s a tidy little place.”

He grinned with an air of knowingness, and seemed rather disconcerted that Ida did not return his smile.

“Shall I give you some water, Ida?” said Mr. Heron.  “I regret that I cannot offer you any wine.  We have no intoxicants in the house.  We are all total abstainers, on principle.”

The other members of the family looked down uncomfortably, and, to Ida’s surprise, as if they were ashamed.

“Thank you,” she said; “I do not care for wine.”

“I am afraid there are a great many things you will miss here,” said Mr. Heron.  “We are a plain, but I trust, Godfearing family, and we are content with the interest which springs from the daily round, the common task.  You will find no excitements at Laburnum Villa.”

Ida, as she glanced at the family, could not help feeling that they were indeed plain, but she made haste to say that she did not need any excitements and that her life had hitherto been devoid of them.  They seemed to think that it was the proper thing to sit round the table while she was making her pretence of a meal; but when it was finished, Mr. Joseph stretched himself out in what was erroneously called an easy-chair, and proceeded to monopolise the conversation.