"Good-bye," she said, holding out her hand, "and I hope you'll find your sister Diana better." She felt inclined to add, "Take care of your purse, and don't lose your ticket," as though she were parting from a child; but Miss Munnion suddenly leaned forward, and gave her a hard little nervous kiss. It felt more like a knock from something wooden than a kiss, and Iris was so startled that she received it in perfect silence. Before she had recovered herself the small figure, more lop-sided than ever now, because it was weighed down by the bag, had stumbled through the gates, and was on its way down the road. Iris watched till it was out of sight, and then went slowly back to the house. STORY THREE, CHAPTER 3. THE LOST CHANCE. "For all is bright, and beauteous, and clear, And the meanest thing most precious and dear, When the magic of love is present-- Love that lends a sweetness and grace To the humblest spot and the plainest face, That turns Wilderness Row to Paradise Place, And Garlick Hill to Mount Pleasant."--_Hood_. Iris had no longer any completely idle days, for she soon found that her godmother expected her in some measure to fill Miss Munnion's place; she must be ready at Mrs Fotheringham's beck and call, to read to her, drive with her, and walk with her in the garden. They were none of them difficult duties, and could not in any sense be called hard work. A day at Paradise Court was in this respect still a very different matter from a day in Albert Street; yet sometimes Iris felt a heavy weariness hanging upon her, which was a new way of being tired--quite a different sort of fatigue to anything she had known before, but quite as uncomfortable. Most of all she hated the drives. To sit opposite her godmother in perfect silence in a close stuffy carriage, and be driven along the dusty roads for exactly an hour at exactly the same pace. Not a word spoken, unless Mrs Fotheringham wished the blinds pulled up or down, or a message given to the coachman. Iris longed feverishly sometimes to jump out and run up a hill, or to climb over the gates into the fields they passed on the way. There were such lots of lovely things to gather just now. Dog roses and yellow honeysuckle in the hedges, poppies and tall white daisies in the fields, and waving feathery grasses. But at all these she could only look and long out of the carriage window. She often thought at these times of poor Miss Munnion, and wondered how her sister Diana was, and whether she had been very glad to see her, and most of all she wondered how Miss Munnion _could_ have been so anxious to keep the situation; she must be so very tired of sitting opposite Mrs Fotheringham and looking out of the carriage window.