world to sustain her.

'Do you think you shall like me?' she asked, when they had all swarmed up
to the long corridor, out of which numerous bedrooms opened.

'I like you already,' answered Ida.

'Do thoo like pigs?' asked a smaller girl, round and rosy, in a holland
pinafore, putting the question as if it were relevant to her sister's
inquiry.

'I don't quite know,' said Ida doubtfully.

''Cos there are nine black oneths, tho pwutty. Will thoo come and thee
them?'

Ida said she would think about it: and then she received various
pressing invitations to go and see lop-eared rabbits, guinea-pigs, a tame
water-rat in the rushes of the duck-pond, a collection of eggs in the
schoolroom, and the new lawn-tennis ground which father had made in the
paddock.

'Now all you small children run away!' cried Bessie, loftily. 'Ida and I
are going to dress for dinner.'

The crowd dispersed reluctantly, with low mutterings about rabbits, pigs,
and water-rats, like the murmurs of a stage mob; and then Bessie led her
friend into a large sunny room fronting westward, a room with three
windows, cushioned window-seats, two pretty white-curtained beds, and a
good deal of old-fashioned and heterogeneous furniture, half English,