Hard? it's shameful,' cried the girl. 'I should like to see old Pew turning me off for keeping company with my young man. But she daren't do it. Good servants are hard to get nowadays; or any servants, indeed, for the paltry wages she gives.'
'And governesses are a drug in the market,' said Ida, bitterly.
'Good-bye, Eliza.'
'Where are you going, miss? Home?'
'Yes; I suppose so.'
The reckless tone, the careless words alarmed the good-hearted housemaid.
'Oh, miss, pray go home, straight home—wherever your home is. You are too handsome to be going about alone among strangers. It's a wicked world, miss—wickeder than you know of, perhaps. Have you got money enough to get you home comfortable?'
'I'll see,' answered Ida, taking out Miss Cobb's fat little purse and looking into it.
There were two sovereigns and a good deal of silver—a tremendous fortune for a schoolgirl; but then it was said that Cobb Brothers coined money by the useful art of brewing.
'Yes; I have plenty of money for my journey,' said Ida.
'Are you certain sure, now, miss?' pleaded the housemaid; 'for if you ain't, I've got a pound laid by in my drawer ready to put in the Post Office Savings Bank, and you're as welcome to it as flowers in May, if you'll take it off me.'