it was the promised intimation that Ida would be at home after eight
o'clock on Wednesday and Friday evenings, nothing more. The second
letter he allowed to lie by till he had breakfasted. He could see
that it contained more than one sheet. When at length he opened it,
he read this:--

"DEAR MR. WAYMARK,--I have an hour of freedom this Sunday afternoon, and
I will spend it in replying as well as I can to your very interesting
letter. My life is, as you say, very quiet and commonplace compared with
that you find yourself suddenly entering upon. I have no such strange
and moving things to write about, but I will tell you in the first place
how I live and what I do, then put down some of the thoughts your letter
has excited in me.

"The family I am with consists of very worthy but commonplace
people. They treat me with more consideration than I imagine
governesses usually get, and I am grateful to them for this, but
their conversation, especially that of Mrs. Epping, I find rather
wearisome. It deals with very trivial concerns of everyday life, in
which I vainly endeavour to interest myself.

"Then there is the religious formalism of the Eppings and their
friends. They are High Church. They discuss with astonishing vigour
and at dreadful length what seems to me the most immaterial points
in the Church service, and just at present an impulse is given to
their zeal by the fact of their favourite clergyman being threatened
with a prosecution for ritualistic practices. Of course I have to
feign a becoming interest in all this, and to take part in all their
religious forms and ceremonies. And indeed it is all so new to me
that I have scarcely yet got over the first feelings of wonder and