Paradise Place,
And Garlick Hill to Mount Pleasant."--_Hood_.

Iris had no longer any completely idle days, for she soon found that her
godmother expected her in some measure to fill Miss Munnion's place; she
must be ready at Mrs Fotheringham's beck and call, to read to her,
drive with her, and walk with her in the garden. They were none of them
difficult duties, and could not in any sense be called hard work. A day
at Paradise Court was in this respect still a very different matter from
a day in Albert Street; yet sometimes Iris felt a heavy weariness
hanging upon her, which was a new way of being tired--quite a different
sort of fatigue to anything she had known before, but quite as
uncomfortable. Most of all she hated the drives. To sit opposite her
godmother in perfect silence in a close stuffy carriage, and be driven
along the dusty roads for exactly an hour at exactly the same pace. Not
a word spoken, unless Mrs Fotheringham wished the blinds pulled up or
down, or a message given to the coachman. Iris longed feverishly
sometimes to jump out and run up a hill, or to climb over the gates into
the fields they passed on the way. There were such lots of lovely
things to gather just now. Dog roses and yellow honeysuckle in the
hedges, poppies and tall white daisies in the fields, and waving
feathery grasses. But at all these she could only look and long out of
the carriage window. She often thought at these times of poor Miss
Munnion, and wondered how her sister Diana was, and whether she had been
very glad to see her, and most of all she wondered how Miss Munnion
_could_ have been so anxious to keep the situation; she must be so very
tired of sitting opposite Mrs Fotheringham and looking out of the
carriage window.

These reflections were of course kept to herself, and indeed
conversation of any kind was forbidden during the drives, but Iris was
so used to talking that it was impossible to her to keep silence at
other times. By degrees she lost her awe of her godmother, and
chattered away to her about that which interested herself--her brothers
and sisters, their sayings and doings, and their life at home.
Sometimes she found Mrs Fotheringham's keen dark eyes fixed
inquisitively upon her, as though they were studying some curious
animal, and sometimes her funniest stories about Dottie or Susie were
cut short by a sharp, "That will do, child. Run away."

But this did not discourage her, and she became s