If, as had been asserted, Ida sought the Utopia of her fanciful dreams in her "return to Palestine," as she playfully styled it; if her ideas of country life were drawn from pastorals and romances, she would have sunk under the drawbacks and iron realities she encountered. Her influence over her servants was strong; but among so many, insubordination reared its head, now and then. The idle and sulky, deceived by her amenity and care for their welfare, appealed from Mr. Grant's decisions to her clemency; and with so much plausibility, that when this mode of undermining his laws was new, she was ready to sustain them. Consistent, however, to her principle of examining both sides of a question, she refused to reverse any decree, before hearing all the circumstances; and invariably, when this was done, ratified the original judgment. There were old and privileged supernumeraries who talked of her father's childhood, as a thing of yesterday; and volunteering the advantage of their experience for the benefit of the "poor chile,"--tossed their heads high at the idea of her controlling or enlightening them. Adding to self-righteousness, the whims and peevishness of age, they caused Ida more annoyance than the management of the whole estate besides; and hardly less than the never-ending vexations of the Digganses, and their neighbors of the same stamp, not to mention Pinely--most wearisome of all. He penned voluminous epistles, to complain of "a trivial oversight in her otherwise irreproachable system of philanthropy," or to convey a "father's acknowledgments for the soul-elevating teachings of which his beloved offspring were accipients;" and when they were unnoticed, his visits were frequent. She received him with distant politeness; and strove to repress his forwardness by chilling dignity--and he came again next day. At last he presented himself in the parlor, where were Emma and herself--so intoxicated, that he could not stand upright. His tongue was oily as ever, notwithstanding his limbs refused to do their office; and when Will entered, in answer to the vehement ring, he was holding the door with both hands, swinging it with him in his attempts to bow to the ladies, he was addressing as, "incomparable pair! whose supereminent enchantments are confessed by the most hebete of created intelligences." Emma had shrunk into a corner, and Ida, her hand still upon the bell-rope--her brow frowning--spoke in a lofty tone, "Uncle Will! you will conduct this _gentleman_ to the porch, and as much further as he shall see convenient to go. It is necessary to teach him to exercise some discrimination as to the times of his visits."