'Then you have heard a most egregious fib. There were dozens of girls with nineteen-inch waists, before whom I felt myself a monster of dumpiness. But I got on pretty well. I don't pretend to be a good dancer, but I can generally adapt myself to the badness of other people's steps, and that goes for something.' And now having got away from all painful subjects, Bessie rattled on at a tremendous pace, describing girls and gowns, and partners, and tennis tournaments, and yachting excursions, all in a breath, as she sat in front of the fire sipping her tea, and devouring a particular kind of buttered bun for which Miss Wendover's cook was famous. 'Aunt Betsy's tea is always nicer than any one else's; and so are her buns and her butter; in fact everything in this house is nicer than it is anywhere else,' said Bessie, pausing in her reminiscences. 'You are in clover here, Ida.' 'Thanks to your goodness, Bess.' 'To mine? But I have positively nothing to do with it.' 'Yes, you have. It is from the wish to please her warm-hearted little niece that Miss Wendover has been so good to me.' 'But if you had been plain or stupid she would have only been kind to you at a distance. Aunt Betsy has her idiosyncrasies, and one of them is a liking for beauty in individuals, as well as in chairs and tables and cups and saucers. You will see that all her servants are pretty. She picks them for their good looks, I believe, and trains them afterwards. She would not have so much as a bad-looking stable boy.' 'Hard upon ugliness to be shut out of this paradise,' said Ida. 'Oh, but she finds places for the ugly boys and girls, with people whose teeth are not so easily set on edge, she says herself. And now I must be off, to change my frock for dinner. You know the back way to The Knoll--across the fields to the little door in the kitchen-garden. You will always come that way, of course. When are you coming to see us? To-morrow?' 'You forget that my time is not my own. I will come whenever Miss Wendover can best spare me.' 'Oh, you will have plenty of spare time, I am sure.' 'I hope not too much, or I shall be too sharply reminded that Miss Wendover has taken me out of charity.' 'Charity fiddlestick! A prize-winner like you! And now good-bye, pet, or I shall be late for dinner, which offends the Colonel beyond measure.' Bessie scampered off, Ida following her to the glass door, only in time to see her running across the lawn as fast as her feet could carry her. It was characteristic of Bessie to cut everything very fine in the way of time. CHAPTER XII. THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES. And now began for Ida a life of exceeding peacefulness, comfort, happiness even; for how could a girl fail to be happy among people who were so friendly and kind, who so thoroughly respected her, and so warmly admired her for gifts altogether independent of fortune--who never, by word or look, reminded her that she was in anywise of less importance than themselves?