As Isabel had intimated, life at Laburnum Villa was not altogether

hilarious. The environs of London are undeniably pretty, prettier than

those of any other capital in Europe, but there is no shirking the fact

that the Northern suburbs of our great metropolis are somewhat grim and

soul-depressing. Laburnum Villa was in a long street, which resembled

the other streets as one tree resembles another; and you had to

traverse a great many of these streets before you got into the open

country, that is, away from the red-bricked and stucco villas, and

still smaller and uglier houses, which had been run up by the

enterprising jerry-builder.

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But Ida would have been glad enough to have gone through this purgatory

to the paradise of country lanes which lay beyond, if she could only

have gone alone; but Mrs. Heron and Isabel never left her alone; they

seemed to consider it their duty to "keep her company," and they could

not understand her desire for the open air, much less her craving for

solitude. Until Ida's arrival, Isabel had never taken a walk for a

walk's sake, and for the life of her she could not comprehend Ida's

love of "trapesing" about the dusty lanes, and over the commons where

there was always a wind, Isabel declared, to blow her hair about. If

she went out, she liked to go up to London, and saunter about the hot

streets, gazing in at the shop windows, or staring enviously at the

"carriage people" as they drove by.

Ida didn't care for London, took very little interest in the shops, and

none whatever in the carriage folks. She was always pining for the

fresh air, the breezy common, the green trees; and on the occasions

when she could persuade Isabel to a country ramble, she walked with

dreamy eyes that saw not the cut-and-dry rusticity of Woodgreen and

Whetstone, but the wild dales and the broad extant of the Cumberland

hills.

She was, indeed, living in the past, and it was the present that seemed

a dream to her. Of course she missed the great house, where she had

ruled as mistress, her horses and her cows and dogs; but what she

missed more than all else was her freedom of motion.

It was the routine, the dull, common routine, of Laburnum Villa which

irked so badly. Neither Mrs. Heron nor Isabel had any resources in

themselves; they had few friends, and they were of the most

commonplace, not to say vulgar type; and a "Tea" at Laburnum Villa

tried Ida almost beyond endurance; for the visitors talked little else

but scandal, and talked it clumsily. Most of Isabel's time was spent in

constructing garments by the aid of paper-patterns which were given

away by some periodical; admirable patterns, which, in skilful hands,

no doubt, produced the most useful results; but Isabel was too stupid

to avail herself of their valuable aid, and must always add something

which rendered the garment _outré_ and vulgar.




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