comfortable and most absurdly content. When she woke
the sister was standing beside her, and nodded with cheerful approval.

"That's better, Miss Heron," she said. "It is quite pleasant to watch
you asleep and not to hear you rambling."

Ida's face flushed.

"Have I been rambling?" she asked. "What have I said? You know my
name!"

The nurse smiled.

"Your things are marked," she explained. "But there was no address,
nothing which could help us to communicate with your friends, or we
would have done so. You will tell us where to send now, will you not?"

Ida blushed again and felt troubled. Why should she annoy and worry the
Herons? She shuddered slightly as she pictured her cousin John standing
beside the bed where the sweet and pleasant-faced sister now stood, and
preaching at her. They would want to take her back to Loburnum Villa;
and Ida regarded the prospect of return to that cheerful abode of the
Christian virtues as a prisoner might regard the prospect of returning
to his gaol. The sister regarded her keenly without appearing to do so.

"Perhaps you would rather remain quietly for a few days, Miss Heron?"
she suggested, sweetly.

Ida's eyes--they looked preternaturally large, violet orbs in her white
face--beamed gratefully.

"Oh, yes, yes! if I may. Shall I be ill long?--how soon will it be
before I can go?"

It is about as difficult to get a definite answer from a nurse as from
a doctor.

"Oh, some days yet," replied the sister, cheerfully. "You must not go
until you are quite strong; in fact, we should not let you. Now you lie
quite still and try and sleep again if you can; and you can think over
whether you would like to communicate with your friends or not. If you
ask my advice, I shall say, like Mr. Punch, 'Don't!'"

"I won't," said Ida, with her rare smile.

The sister nodded and left her, and Ida closed her eyes again: but not
to sleep. She recalled her flight from Laburnum Villa, her wandering
through the streets, the crowded and noisy quay, and the strange
hallucination, the vision of Stafford standing on the stern of the
vessel. Of course, it was only a vision, an hallucination; but how real
it had seemed! So real that it was almost difficult to believe that it
was not he himself. She smiled sadly at the thought of Stafford, the
son of the great Sir Stephen Orme, sailing in a cattle-ship!

The hours passed in a kind of peaceful monotony, broken by the frequent
visits of Nurse Brown an