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Mauleverer Manor lay midway between Hampton and Chertsey, in a land of meadows and gardens which the speculating builder had not yet invaded. The butterfly-room was furnished a little better than the common run of boarding-school bedchambers.
It was the May Fair a district not without a shade of Bohemianism, a certain fastness of tone. The wildest girls in the school were to be found in the butterfly-room. It was a pleasant enough room in itself, even apart from its association with pleasant people.
And now Ida Palliser came into the butterfly-room, yawning wearily, to brush herself up a little before tea, knowing that Miss Pew and her younger sister, Miss Dulcibella who devoted herself to dress and the amenities of life generally would scrutinize her with eyes only too ready to see anything amiss. The butterfly-room was not empty.
'Why should I not spend the day in one of the garrets, darning stockings and packing boxes? she said bitterly, when a grand discussion about the garden party was being held in the butterfly-room; 'nobody will want me. I have no relations coming to admire me. 'You know you don't mean what you say, said Miss Rylance. 'You expect to have half-a-dozen prizes, and to lord it over all of us.
This is how fancy had painted the picture when Ida discoursed of her future in the butterfly-room at Mauleverer; Miss Rylance listening and making sarcastic comments; Bessie in fits of smothered laughter at all the comic touches in the description; for did not true-hearted Bessie know that the thing was a joke, and that her noble Ida would never so degrade herself as to marry for money?
Ida Palliser was fortunate enough to have a bed in the butterfly-room, so called on account of a gaudy wall paper, whereon Camberwell Beauties disported themselves among roses and lilies in a strictly conventional style of art. The butterfly-room was the most fashionable and altogether popular dormitory at the Manor.
Helping her pupils through their difficulties, battling with their stupidities, employed her too closely for any day-dreams of her own. But when prayers had been read, and the school had dispersed, and the butterfly-room was hushed into the silence of midnight, Ida Palliser lay broad awake, wondering at what Fate was doing for her.
Thus it happened that a big wainscot wardrobe, with doors substantial enough for a church, projected its enormous bulk upon one side of the butterfly-room, while a tall narrow cheval glass stood in front of a window. That cheval was the glory of the butterfly-room. The girls could see how their skirts hung, and if the backs of their dresses fitted.
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