My wife is, unfortunately, an invalid, and requires constant care and attention; but I have no doubt she will find strength to bear any fresh burden which Providence may see fit to put upon her.

Though our circumstances are comfortable, we are not surrounded by the luxuries which so often prove a stumbling-block to weaker brethren.

I trust you may be happy in our humble home, and that you may find some opportunity of usefulness in this new state of life to which you are called." Ida tried to remember all this as she stood in the centre of the drawing-room and looked round upon the modern but heavy and ugly objects with which it was furnished.
The room was seedy and shabby, but with a different seediness and shabbiness from that of Heron Hall; for there was an attempt to conceal its loss of freshness with antimacassars, large in size and hideous of pattern.

A grim and ugly portrait of Mr.John Heron occupied a great portion of one of the walls, and was confronted by a portrait, of a similar size, of his wife, a middle-class woman of faded aspect and languishing expression.

The other pictures were of the type that one usually sees in such houses; engravings printed from wornout plates, and third-class lithographs.