Ida often went to here own room before Mr. Joseph returned at night, but sometimes he came in before she had gone; and he made a practice of sitting near her, even venturing on occasions to lean over the back of her chair, his mother watching him out of the corners of her eyes, and with her thin lips drawn down; and although Ida invariably got up and went to another part of the room, her avoidance of Joseph did not lull his mother’s suspicions.  Ida’s contempt for the young man was too profound to permit of such a sentiment as hatred—­one can scarcely hate that which one scorns—­but whenever he came near her with his tobacco and spirit-laden breath, she was conscious of an inward shudder which closely resembled that with which she passed through the reptile house at the Zoological Gardens.

Mr. Joseph, the house, the whole life, began to get on her nerves; and in the solitude of her own room she spent many an anguished hour trying to discover some way of escape.  She read all the advertisements of situations vacant in the newspaper; but all the employers seemed to require technical knowledge and accomplishments which she did not possess.  She knew she could not teach even the youngest of children, she was unacquainted with the mysterious science of short-hand, and had never seen a typewriter.  No one appeared to want a young lady who could break horses, tend cattle, or run a farm; and this was the only kind of work she could do.

So she was forced to the bitter conclusion that she would have to go on living the life, and eat the bread of the Herons, with as much patience as she could command, in the hope that some day “something would happen” to release her from her bondage, which was gradually robbing her eyes of their brightness and making her thin and listless.  It seemed that nothing ever would happen, that the weeks would drag into months and the months into years; and one day as she toiled slowly home from a country walk, she almost felt inclined to turn to that last refuge of the destitute and answer one of the advertisements for a lady’s help:  anything would be better than to go on living the life in death which was her lot at Laburnum Villa.

As she approached the house, she saw that the gas was lit in the drawing-room, and the sound of voices, in which a strange one mingled, penetrated through the thin door as she passed through the hall to her room.  While she was taking off her hat, there came a hurried knock, and Isabel entered in her best dress.  She was flushed and in a flatter of suppressed excitement.

“Oh, Ida, can you lend me a clean collar?” she asked, in a stage whisper, and with a giggle which was intended to invite question; but, as Ida had asked none, Isabel said, with another giggle:  “You’ve heard me speak of George Powler?”

Ida looked doubtful:  Isabel had mentioned so many men, generally by their Christian names, who were supposed to be smitten by her, that Ida, often listening absently enough to the foolish girl’s confidences, not seldom “got mixed.”