Mr.
Wordley would have liked to have persuaded her to see some of the women
who had hastened to comfort her; but he knew that any attempt at
persuasion would have been in vain, that he would not have been able to
break down the barrier of reserve which the girl had instinctively and
reservedly erected between her suffering soul and the world. His heart
ached for her, and he did all that a man could do to lighten the burden
of her trouble; but there was very little that he could do beyond
superintending the necessary arrangements for the funeral.
His first thought was of the relatives; but, somewhat to his own
dismay, he found that the only one whom he could trace was a certain
cousin, a more than middle-aged man who, though he bore the name of
Heron, was quite unknown to Ida, and, so far as Mr. Wordley was aware,
had not crossed the threshold of the Hall for many years. He was a
certain John Heron, a retired barrister, who had gone in for religion,
not in the form of either of the Established Churches, but of that of
one of the least known sects, the members of which called themselves
some kind of brothers, were supposed to be very strict observers of the
Scriptural law, and were considered by those who did not belong to them
both narrow-minded and uncharitable.
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