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.