Such a radical change had apparently taken place in Ida Mayhew's
world. She was bewildered with her trouble, and could not understand
the dreary outlook. She had come to the Lake House but a few weeks
before, a vain, light-hearted maiden, looking upon life with laughing
and thoughtless glances, and having no more definite purposes than
the butterfly that flits from flower to flower, caring not which
are harmless and which poisonous, so that they yield a momentary
sweetness.
But now, for causes utterly unforeseen and half-inexplicable, all
flowers had withered, and the old pleasures once so exhilarating
were a weariness even in thought. Her world, once a pleasure
garden, had been transformed into a path so thorny and flinty that
every step brought new bruises and lacerations; and it led away
among shadows so cold and dark, that she shivered at the thought
of her prospective life.
Her heart had so suddenly and thoroughly betrayed her, that she
was overwhelmed with a sense of helplessness and perplexity. The
spoiled and flattered girl had always been accustomed to have her
own way. Self-gratification had been the rule and habit of her
life. If Van Berg had only admired and complimented her, if he
had joined the honeyed chorus of flattery that had waited on her
sensuous beauty, his voice would probably have been unheeded and
lost among many others.
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