At Love's Cost by Charles Garvice — Read

As Isabel had intimated, life at Laburnum Villa was not altogether hilarious. The environs of London are undeniably pretty, prettier than those of any other capital in Europe, but there is no shirking the fact that the Northern suburbs of our great metropolis are somewhat grim and soul-depressing. Laburnum Villa was in a long street, which resembled the other streets as one tree resembles another; and you had to traverse a great many of these streets before you got into the open country, that is, away from the red-bricked and stucco villas, and still smaller and uglier houses, which had been run up by the enterprising jerry-builder.

But Ida would have been glad enough to have gone through this purgatory to the paradise of country lanes which lay beyond, if she could only have gone alone; but Mrs. Heron and Isabel never left her alone; they seemed to consider it their duty to "keep her company," and they could not understand her desire for the open air, much less her craving for solitude. Until Ida's arrival, Isabel had never taken a walk for a walk's sake, and for the life of her she could not comprehend Ida's love of "trapesing" about the dusty lanes, and over the commons where there was always a wind, Isabel declared, to blow her hair about. If she went out, she liked to go up to London, and saunter about the hot streets, gazing in at the shop windows, or staring enviously at the "carriage people" as they drove by.