Ida murmured a suitable response; but though she was by no means demonstrative they were satisfied; and as they left they expressed that satisfaction to each other.

“Oh, yes, she was glad to see us,” Lady Bannerdale said; “and I like her all the better for not meeting us half-way and for refraining from any gushing.  Poor girl!  I am afraid she has been very ill, and has felt her trouble very keenly.  She is much thinner, and when she came into the room there was an expression in her face which touched me and made my eyes dim.”

“We must look after her,” remarked Lady Vayne.  “There is something weird in the idea of her living there all alone; though, of course, her maid, Jessie, will take care of her.”

Lady Bannerdale smiled.

“Ida Heron is one of those girls who are quite capable of taking care of themselves,” she said.  “How wonderfully calm and self-possessed she was.  Most girls would have been rather upset, or, at any rate, a little flurried, meeting us all so unexpectedly; but she came into the room with the perfect unself-consciousness which marks—­”

“The high-bred lady,” finished Lord Bannerdale.  “I wonder whether we realise how old a family the Herons is; we are all mushrooms compared with that slim, little girl, who is now the mistress of Herondale and an enormous fortune.”

“We shall have to find a husband for her,” remarked Lady Vayne, who was the match-maker of the locality.

Lord Bannerdale smiled.

“The trouble would be to get Miss Ida to accept him when you have found him,” he said, shrewdly.  “I have an idea she would be difficult to please; there is a little curl to those pretty lips of hers which is tolerably significant.”

“Poor girl!  There is time enough yet to think of such a thing,” said Lady Bannerdale, reprovingly; but while she sat it, mother-like, she thought that her son, Edwin, would be home from a long tour in the East in a week or two; that he was particularly good-looking, and in the opinion of more persons than his mother, a particularly amiable and good fellow.

The next day there were more visitors; they all seemed as genuinely glad at her return, and they all made as genuine overtures of friendship.  It was evident that Ida need not be alone in the world any longer, unless she wished to be.  On the morning of the third day, as she was riding to Bryndermere, with some shopping as an excuse, she met Mr. Wordley; a gentleman was sitting beside him who, Ida guessed, was the architect.  He proved to be no less a personage than the famous Mr. Hartley.  They had pulled up for the introduction close by the opening on the lake; and while the architect was exchanging greetings with Ida, his keen eyes wandered now and again to the Villa; and as Ida turned to ride back with them, he said: 

“That is rather a fine place over there, Miss Heron; rather bizarre and conspicuous, but striking and rather artistic.  New, too:  whose is it?”