'Oh, Ida,' she said, kissing her step-daughter heartily enough, despite her reproachful tone, 'how could you go on so! We have had such a letter from Miss Pew. Your father is awfully cut up. And we were expecting you all yesterday. He went to Dieppe to meet the afternoon boat. Where have you been since Tuesday?' 'I slept at the lock-house with a nice civil woman, who gave me a night's lodging,' said Ida, somewhat embarrassed by this question. 'But why not have come home at once, dear?' asked the step-mother mildly. She always felt herself a poor creature before her Juno-like daughter. 'I was flurried and worried--hardly knew what I was doing for the first few hours after I left Mauleverer; and I let the time slip by till it was too late to think of travelling yesterday,' answered Ida. 'Old Pew is a demon.' 'She seems to be a nasty, unkind old thing,' said Mrs. Palliser; 'for, after all, the worst she can bring against you is flirting with your friend's cousin. I hope you are engaged to him, dear; for that will silence everybody.' 'No, I am not engaged to him--he is nothing to me,' answered Ida, crimsoning; 'I never saw him, except in Fräulein's company. Neither you nor my father would like me to marry a man without sixpence.' 'But in Miss Pew's letter she said you declared you were engaged to Mr. Wendover of the Abbey, a gentleman of wealth and position. She was wicked enough to say she did not believe a word you said; but still, Ida, I do hope you were not telling falsehoods.' 'I hardly knew what I said,' replied Ida, feeling the difficulties of her position rising up on every side and hemming her in. She had never contemplated this kind of thing when she repudiated her marriage and turned her face homewards. 'She maddened me by her shameful attack, talking to me as if I were dirt, degrading me before the whole school. If you had been treated as I was you would have been beside yourself.' 'I might have gone into hysterics,' said Mrs. Palliser, 'but I don't think I should have told deliberate falsehoods: and to say that you were engaged to a rich man when you were not engaged, and the man hasn't a sixpence, was going a little too far. But don't fret, dear,' added the step-mother, soothingly, as the tears of shame and anger--anger against fate, life, all things--welled into Ida's lovely eyes. 'Never mind. We'll say no more about it. Come upstairs to your own room--it's Vernie's day-nursery now, but you won't mind that, I know--and take off your hat. Poor thing, how tired and ill you look!' 'I feel as if I was going to be ill and die, and I hope I am,' said Ida, petulantly. 'Don't, dear; it's wicked to say such a thing as that. You needn't be afraid of your poor pa; he takes everything easily.' 'Yes, he is always good. Where is he?' 'Not up yet. He comes down in time for his little _déjeûner à la fourchette_. Poor fellow, he had to get up so early in India.'