"I shall never enjoy anything again," said his aunt, gloomily.

"Why not?"

"Because there's nothing to enjoy."

"I don't feel so, aunt. I feel as merry as a cricket."

"You won't be long. Like as not you'll be took down with fever to-morrow, and maybe die."

"I won't trouble myself about it till the time comes," said Jack. "I expect to live to dance at your wedding yet, Aunt Rachel."

This reference was too much. It brought to Rachel's mind the Daniel to whom she had expected to link her destiny, and she burst into a dismal sob, and hurried upstairs to her own chamber.

"Rachel acts queerly to-day," said Mrs. Harding. "I think she can't be feeling well. If she don't feel better to-morrow I shall advise her to send for the doctor."

"I am afraid it was mean to play such a trick on Aunt Rachel," thought Jack, half repentantly. "I didn't think she'd take it so much in earnest. I must keep dark about that letter. She'd never forgive me if she knew."

For some days there was an added gloom on Miss Rachel's countenance, but the wound was not deep; and after a time her disappointment ceased to rankle in her too sensitive heart.



CHAPTER XII

SEVEN YEARS

Seven years slipped by unmarked by any important change. The Hardings were still prosperous in an humble way. The cooper had been able to obtain work most of the time, and this, with the annual remittance for little Ida, had enabled the family not only to live in comfort, but even to save up one hundred and fifty dollars a year. They might even have saved more, living as frugally as they were accustomed to do, but there was one point in which they would none of them consent to be economical. The little Ida must have everything she wanted. Timothy brought home nearly every day some little delicacy for her, which none of the rest thought of sharing. While Mrs. Harding, far enough from vanity, always dressed with extreme plainness, Ida's attire was always of good material and made up tastefully.

Sometimes the little girl asked: "Mother, why don't you buy yourself some of the pretty things you get for me?"

Mrs. Harding would answer, smiling: "Oh, I'm an old woman, Ida. Plain things are best for me."

"No, I'm sure you're not old, mother. You don't wear a cap. Aunt Rachel is a good deal older than you."

"Hush, Ida. Don't let Aunt Rachel hear that. She wouldn't like it."

"But she is ever so much older than you, mother," persisted the child.

Once Rachel heard a remark of this kind, and perhaps it was that that prejudiced her against Ida. At any rate, she was not one of those who indulged her. Frequently she rebuked her for matters of no importance; but it was so well understood in the cooper's household that this was Aunt Rachel's way, that Ida did not allow it to trouble her, as the lightest reproach from Mrs. Harding would have done.

Had Ida been an ordinary child, all this petting would have had an injurious effect upon her mind. But, fortunately, she had the rare simplicity, young as she was, which lifted her above the dangers which might have spoiled her otherwise. Instead of being made vain and conceited, she only felt grateful for the constant kindness shown her by her father and mother, and brother Jack, as she was wont to call them. Indeed it had not been thought best to let her know that such were not the actual relations in which they stood to her.

There was one point, much more important than dress, in which Ida profited by the indulgence of her friends.

"Martha," the cooper was wont to say, "Ida is a sacred charge in our hands. If we allow her to grow up ignorant, or only allow her ordinary advantages, we shall not fulfill our duty. We have the means, through Providence, of giving her some of those advantages which she would enjoy if she had remained in that sphere to which her parents doubtless belong. Let no unwise parsimony on our part withhold them from her."

"You are right, Timothy," said his wife; "right, as you always are. Follow the dictates of your own heart, and fear not that I shall disapprove."

"Humph!" said Aunt Rachel; "you ain't actin' right, accordin' to my way of thinkin'. Readin', writin' and cypherin' was enough for girls to learn in my day. What's the use of stuffin' the girl's head full of nonsense that'll never do her no good? I've got along without it, and I ain't quite a fool."

But the cooper and his wife had no idea of restricting Ida's education to the rather limited standard indicated by Rachel. So, from the first, they sent her to a carefully selected private school, where she had the advantage of good associates, and where her progress was astonishingly rapid.

Ida early displayed a remarkable taste for drawing. As soon as this was discovered, her adopted parents took care that she should have abundant opportunity for cultivating it. A private master was secured, who gave her lessons twice a week, and boasted everywhere of the progress made by his charming young pupil.

"What's the good of it?" asked Rachel. "She'd a good deal better be learnin' to sew and knit."

"All in good time," said Timothy. "She can attend to both."

"I never wasted my time that way," said Rachel. "I'd be ashamed to."

Nothing could exceed Timothy's gratification, when, on his birthday, Ida presented him with a beautifully drawn sketch of his wife's placid and benevolent face.

"When did you do it, Ida?" he asked, after earnest expressions of admiration.

"I did it in odd minutes," she answered, "when I had nothing else to do."

"But how could you do it, without any of us knowing what you were about?"

"I had a picture before me, and you thought I was copying it, but, whenever I could do it without being noticed, I looked up at mother as she sat at her sewing, and so, after a while, I finished the picture."

"And a fine one it is," said the cooper, admiringly.

Mrs. Harding insisted that Ida had flattered her, but this Ida would not admit.

"I couldn't make it look as good as you, mother," she said. "I tried, but somehow I didn't succeed as I wanted to."

"You wouldn't have that difficulty with Aunt Rachel," said Jack, roguishly.

Ida could not help smiling, but Rachel did not smile.

"I see," she said, with severe resignation, "that you've taken to ridiculing your poor aunt again. But it's only what I expect. I don't never expect any consideration in this house. I was born to be a martyr, and I expect I shall fulfill my destiny. If my own relations laugh at me, of course I can't expect anything better from other folks. But I shan't be long in the way. I've had a cough for some time past, and I expect I'm in consumption."

"You make too much of a little joke, Rachel," said the cooper, soothingly. "I'm sure Jack didn't mean anything."

"What I said was complimentary," said Jack.

Rachel shook her head incredulously.

"Yes, it was. Ask Ida. Why won't you draw Aunt Rachel, Ida? I think she'd make a very striking picture."

"So I will," said Ida, hesitatingly, "if she will let me."

"Now, Aunt Rachel, there's a chance for you," said Jack. "Take my advice, and improve it. When it's finished it can be hung up in the Art Rooms, and who knows but you may secure a husband by it."

"I wouldn't marry," said Rachel, firmly compressing her lips; "not if anybody'd go down on their knees to me."

"Now, I'm sure, Aunt Rachel, that's cruel of you," said Jack, demurely.

"There ain't any man I'd trust my happiness to," pursued the spinster.

"She hasn't any to trust," observed Jack, sotto voce.

"Men are all deceivers," continued Rachel, "the best of 'em. You can't believe what one of 'em says. It would be a great deal better if people never married at all."

"Then where would the world be a hundred years hence?" suggested her nephew.

"Come to an end, most likely," answered Aunt Rachel; "and I'm not sure but that would be the best thing. It's growing more and more wicked every day."

It will be seen that no great change has come over Miss Rachel Harding, during the years that have intervened. She takes the same disheartening view of human nature and the world's prospects as ever. Nevertheless, her own hold upon the world seems as strong as ever. Her appetite continues remarkably good, and, although she frequently expresses herself to the effect that there is little use in living, she would be as unwilling to leave the world as anyone. It is not impossible that she derives as much enjoyment from her melancholy as other people from their cheerfulness. Unfortunately her peculiar mode of enjoying herself is calculated to have rather a depressing influence upon the spirits of those with whom she comes in contact—always excepting Jack, who has a lively sense of the ludicrous, and never enjoys himself better than in bantering his aunt.

"I don't expect to live more'n a week," said Rachel, one day. "My sands of life are 'most run out."

"Are you sure of that, Aunt Rachel?" asked Jack.

"Yes, I've got a presentiment that it's so."

"Then, if you're sure of it," said her nephew, gravely, "it may be as well to order the coffin in time. What style would you prefer?"

Rachel retreated to her room in tears, exclaiming that he needn't be in such a hurry to get her out of the world; but she came down to supper, and ate with her usual appetite.

Ida is no less a favorite with Jack than with the rest of the household. Indeed, he has constituted himself her especial guardian. Rough as he is in the playground, he is always gentle with her. When she was just learning to walk, and in her helplessness needed the constant care of others, he used, from choice, to relieve his mother of much of the task of amusing the child. He had never had a little sister, and the care of a child as young as Ida was a novelty to him. It was perhaps this very office of guardian to the child, assumed when she was young, that made him feel ever after as if she were placed under his special protection.

Ida was equally attached to Jack. She learned to look to him for assistance in any plan she had formed, and he never disappointed her. Whenever he could, he would accompany her to school, holding her by the hand, and, fond as he was of rough play, nothing would induce him to leave her.

"How long have you been a nursemaid?" asked a boy older than himself, one day.

Jack's fingers itched to get hold of his derisive questioner, but he had a duty to perform, and he contented himself with saying: "Just wait a few minutes, and I'll let you know."

"I dare say you will," was the reply. "I rather think I shall have to wait till both of us are gray before that time."

"You will not have to wait long before you are black and blue," retorted Jack.

"Don't mind what he says, Jack," whispered Ida, fearing that he would leave her.

"Don't be afraid, Ida; I won't leave you. I'll attend to his business another time. I guess he won't trouble us to-morrow."

Meanwhile the boy, emboldened by Jack's passiveness, followed, with more abuse of the same sort. If he had been wiser, he would have seen a storm gathering in the flash of Jack's eye; but he mistook the cause of his forbearance.

The next day, as they were going to school, Ida saw the same boy dodging round the corner with his head bound up.

"What's the matter with him, Jack?" she asked.

"I licked him like blazes, that's all," said Jack, quietly. "I guess he'll let us alone after this."

Even after Jack left school, and got a position in a store at two dollars a week, he gave a large part of his spare time to Ida.

"Really," said Mrs. Harding, "Jack is as careful of Ida as if he was her guardian."

"A pretty sort of a guardian he is!" said Aunt Rachel. "Take my word for it, he's only fit to lead her into mischief."

"You do him injustice, Rachel. Jack is not a model boy, but he takes the best care of Ida."

Rachel shrugged her shoulders, and sniffed significantly. It was quite evident that she did not have a very favorable opinion of her nephew.



CHAPTER XIII

A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR

About eleven o'clock one forenoon Mrs. Harding was in the kitchen, busily engaged in preparing the dinner, when a loud knock was heard at the front door.

"Who can it be?" said Mrs. Harding. "Aunt Rachel, there's somebody at the door; won't you be kind enough to see who it is?"

"People have no business to call at such an hour in the morning," grumbled Rachel, as she laid down her knitting reluctantly, and rose from her seat. "Nobody seems to have any consideration for anybody else. But that's the way of the world."

Opening the outer door, she saw before her a tall woman, dressed in a gown of some dark stuff, with strongly marked, and not altogether pleasant, features.

"Are you the lady of the house?" inquired the visitor, abruptly.

"There ain't any ladies in this house," answered Rachel. "You've come to the wrong place. We have to work for a living here."

"The woman of the house, then," said the stranger, rather impatiently. "It doesn't make any difference about names. Are you the one I want to see?"

"No, I ain't," said Rachel, shortly.

"Will you tell your mistress that I want to see her, then?"

"I have no mistress," said Rachel. "What do you take me for?"

"I thought you might be the servant, but that don't matter. I want to see Mrs. Harding. Will you call her, or shall I go and announce myself?"

"I don't know as she'll see you. She's busy in the kitchen."

"Her business can't be as important as what I've come about. Tell her that, will you?"

Rachel did not fancy the stranger's tone or manner. Certainly she did not manifest much politeness. But the spinster's curiosity was excited, and this led her the more readily to comply with the request.

"Stay here, and I'll call her," she said.

"There's a woman wants to see you," announced Rachel.

"Who is it?"

"I don't know. She hasn't got any manners, that's all I know about her."

Mrs. Harding presented herself at the door.

"Won't you come in?" she asked.

"Yes, I will. What I've got to say to you may take some time."

Mrs. Harding, wondering vaguely what business this strange visitor could have with her, led the way to the sitting room.

"You have in your family," said the woman, after seating herself, "a girl named Ida."

Mrs. Harding looked up suddenly and anxiously. Could it be that the secret of Ida's birth was to be revealed at last? Was it possible that she was to be taken from her?

"Yes," she answered, simply.

"Who is not your child?"

"But I love her as much. I have always taught her to look upon me as her mother."

"I presume so. My visit has reference to her."

"Can you tell me anything of her parentage?" inquired Mrs. Harding, eagerly.

"I was her nurse," said the stranger.

Mrs. Harding scrutinized anxiously the hard features of the woman. It was, at least, a relief to know that no tie of blood connected her with Ida, though, even upon her assurance, she would hardly have believed it.

"Who were her parents?"

"I am not permitted to tell."

Mrs. Harding looked disappointed.

"Surely," she said, with a sudden sinking of the heart, "you have not come to take her away?"

"This letter will explain my object in visiting you," said the woman, drawing a sealed envelope from a bag which she carried in her hand.

The cooper's wife nervously broke open the letter, and read as follows:

"MRS. HARDING: Seven years ago last New Year's night a child was left on your doorsteps, with a note containing a request that you would care for it kindly as your own. Money was sent at the same time to defray the expenses of such care. The writer of this note is the mother of the child, Ida. There is no need to explain here why I sent away the child from me. You will easily understand that it was not done willingly, and that only the most imperative necessity would have led me to such a step. The same necessity still prevents me from reclaiming my child, and I am content still to leave Ida in your charge. Yet there is one thing I desire. You will understand a mother's wish to see, face to face, her own child. With this view I have come to this neighborhood. I will not say where I am, for concealment is necessary to me. I send this note by a trustworthy attendant, Mrs. Hardwick, my little Ida's nurse in her infancy, who will conduct Ida to me, and return her again to you. Ida is not to know who she is visiting. No doubt she believes you to be her mother, and it is well that she should so regard you. Tell her only that it is a lady, who takes an interest in her, and that will satisfy her childish curiosity. I make this request as IDA'S MOTHER."

Mrs. Harding read this letter with mingled feelings. Pity for the writer; a vague curiosity in regard to the mysterious circumstances which had compelled her to resort to such a step; a half feeling of jealousy, that there should be one who had a claim to her dear, adopted daughter, superior to her own; and a strong feeling of relief at the assurance that Ida was not to be permanently removed—all these feelings affected the cooper's wife.

"So you were Ida's nurse?" she said, gently.

"Yes, ma'am," said the stranger. "I hope the dear child is well?"

"Perfectly well. How much her mother must have suffered from the separation!"

"Indeed you may say so, ma'am. It came near to breaking her heart."

"I don't wonder," said sympathizing Mrs. Harding. "I can judge of that by my own feelings. I don't know what I should do, if Ida were to be taken from me."

At this point in the conversation, the cooper entered the house. He had come home on an errand.

"It is my husband," said Mrs. Harding, turning to her visitor, by way of explanation. "Timothy, will you come here a moment?"

The cooper regarded the stranger with some surprise. His wife hastened to introduce her as Mrs. Hardwick, Ida's old nurse, and placed in her husband's hands the letter which we have already read.

He was not a rapid reader, and it took him some time to get through the letter. He laid it down on his knee, and looked thoughtful.

"This is indeed unexpected," he said, at last. "It is a new development in Ida's history. May I ask, Mrs. Hardwick, if you have any further proof? I want to be careful about a child that I love as my own. Can you furnish any other proof that you are what you represent?"

"I judged that the letter would be sufficient. Doesn't it speak of me as the nurse?"

"True; but how can we be sure that the writer is Ida's mother?"

"The tone of the letter, sir. Would anybody else write like that?"

"Then you have read the letter?" asked the cooper, quickly.

"It was read to me before I set out."

"By whom?"

"By Ida's mother. I do not blame you for your caution," said the visitor. "You must be deeply interested in the happiness of the dear child, of whom you have taken such excellent care. I don't mind telling you that I was the one who left her at your door, seven years ago, and that I never left the neighborhood until I saw you take her in."

"And it was this that enabled you to find the house to-day?"

"You forget," corrected the nurse, "that you were not then living in this house, but in another, some rods off, on the left-hand side of the street."

"You are right," said Timothy. "I am inclined to believe in the truth of your story. You must pardon my testing you in such a manner, but I was not willing to yield up Ida, even for a little time, without feeling confident of the hands she was falling into."

"You are right," said Mrs. Hardwick. "I don't blame you in the least. I shall report it to Ida's mother as a proof of your attachment to the child."

"When do you wish Ida to go with you?" asked Mrs. Harding.

"Can you let her go this afternoon?"

"Why," said the cooper's wife, hesitating, "I should like to have a chance to wash out some clothes for her. I want her to appear as neat as possible when she meets her mother."

The nurse hesitated, but presently replied: "I don't wish to hurry you. If you will let me know when she will be ready, I will call for her."

"I think I can get her ready early to-morrow morning."

"That will answer. I will call for her then."

The nurse rose, and gathered her shawl about her.

"Where are you going, Mrs. Hardwick?" asked the cooper's wife.

"To a hotel," was the reply.

"We cannot allow that," said Mrs. Harding, kindly. "It's a pity if we cannot accommodate Ida's old nurse for one night, or ten times as long, for that matter."

"My wife is quite right," said the cooper, hesitatingly. "We must insist on your stopping with us."

The nurse hesitated, and looked irresolute. It was plain she would have preferred to be elsewhere, but a remark which Mrs. Harding made, decided her to accept the invitation.

It was this: "You know, Mrs. Hardwick, if Ida is to go with you, she ought to have a little chance to get acquainted with you before you go."

"I will accept your kind invitation," she said; "but I am afraid I shall be in your way."

"Not in the least. It will be a pleasure to us to have you here. If you will excuse me now, I will go out and attend to my dinner, which I am afraid is getting behindhand."

Left to herself, the nurse behaved in a manner which might be regarded as singular. She rose from her seat, and approached the mirror. She took a full survey of herself as she stood there, and laughed a short, hard laugh. Then she made a formal courtesy to her own reflection, saying: "How do you do, Mrs. Hardwick?"

"Did you speak?" asked the cooper, who was passing through the entry on his way out.

"No," answered the nurse, rather awkwardly. "I may have said something to myself. It's of no consequence."

"Somehow," thought the cooper, "I don't fancy the woman's looks; but I dare say I am prejudiced. We're all of us as God made us."

When Mrs. Harding was making preparations for the noonday meal, she imparted to Rachel the astonishing information which has already been detailed to the reader.

"I don't believe a word of it," said Rachel, resolutely. "The woman's an impostor. I knew she was, the very minute I set eyes on her."

This remark was so characteristic of Rachel, that her sister-in-law did not attach any special importance to it. Rachel, of course, had no grounds for the opinion she so confidently expressed. It was consistent, however, with her general estimate of human nature.

"What object could she have in inventing such a story?" asked Mrs. Harding.

"What object? Hundreds of 'em," said Rachel, rather indefinitely. "Mark my words; if you let her carry off Ida, it'll be the last you'll ever see of her."

"Try to look on the bright side, Rachel. Nothing is more natural than that her mother should want to see her."

"Why couldn't she come herself?" muttered Rachel.

"The letter explains."

"I don't see that it does."

"It says that same reasons exist for concealment as ever."

"And what are they, I should like to know? I don't like mysteries, for my part."

"We won't quarrel with them, at any rate, since they enable us to keep Ida with us."

Aunt Rachel shook her head, as if she were far from satisfied.

"I don't know," said Mrs. Harding, "but I ought to invite Mrs. Hardwick in here. I have left her alone in the front room."

"I don't want to see her," said Rachel. Then, changing her mind suddenly: "Yes, you may bring her in. I'll soon find out whether she's an impostor or not."

The cooper's wife returned with the nurse.

"Mrs. Hardwick," she said, "this is my sister, Miss Rachel Harding."

"I am glad to make your acquaintance, ma'am," said the visitor.

"Rachel, I will leave you to entertain Mrs. Hardwick, while I get ready the dinner."

Rachel and the nurse eyed each other with mutual dislike.

"I hope you don't expect me to entertain you," said Rachel. "I never expect to entertain anybody ag'in. This is a world of trial and tribulation, and I've had my share. So you've come after Ida, I hear?" with a sudden change of tone.

"At her mother's request," said the nurse.

"She wants to see her, then?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"I wonder she didn't think of it before," said Rachel, sharply. "She's good at waiting. She's waited seven years."

"There are circumstances that cannot be explained," commenced the nurse.

"No, I dare say not," said Rachel, dryly. "So you were her nurse?"

"Yes, ma'am," answered the nurse, who did not appear to enjoy this cross-examination.

"Have you lived with Ida's mother ever since?"

"No—yes," stammered the stranger. "Some of the time," she added, recovering herself.

"Umph!" grunted Rachel, darting a sharp glance at her.

"Have you a husband living?" inquired the spinster.

"Yes," answered Mrs. Hardwick. "Have you?"

"I!" repeated Rachel, scornfully. "No, neither living nor dead. I'm thankful to say I never married. I've had trials enough without that. Does Ida's mother live in the city?"

"I can't tell you," said the nurse.

"Humph! I don't like mystery."

"It isn't any mystery," said the visitor. "If you have any objections to make, you must make them to Ida's mother."

"So I will, if you'll tell me where she lives."

"I can't do that."

"Where do you live yourself?" inquired Rachel, shifting her point of attack.

"In Brooklyn," answered Mrs. Hardwick, with some hesitation.

"What street, and number?"

"Why do you want to know?" inquired the nurse.

"You ain't ashamed to tell, be you?"

"Why should I be?"

"I don't know. You'd orter know better than I."

"It wouldn't do you any good to know," said the nurse. "I don't care about receiving visitors."

"I don't want to visit you, I am sure," said Rachel, tossing her head.

"Then you don't need to know where I live."

Rachel left the room, and sought her sister-in-law.

"That woman's an impostor," she said. "She won't tell where she lives. I shouldn't be surprised if she turns out to be a thief."

"You haven't any reason for supposing that, Rachel."

"Wait and see," said Rachel. "Of course I don't expect you to pay any attention to what I say. I haven't any influence in this house."

"Now, Rachel, you have no cause to say that."

But Rachel was not to be appeased. It pleased her to be considered a martyr, and at such times there was little use in arguing with her.



CHAPTER XIV

PREPARING FOR A JOURNEY

Later in the day, Ida returned from school. She bounded into the room, as usual, but stopped short in some confusion, on seeing a stranger.

"Is this my own dear child, over whose infancy I watched so tenderly?" exclaimed the nurse, rising, her harsh features wreathed into a smile.

"It is Ida," said the cooper's wife.

Ida looked from one to the other in silent bewilderment.

"Ida," said Mrs. Harding, in a little embarrassment, "this is Mrs. Hardwick, who took care of you when you were an infant."

"But I thought you took care of me, mother," said Ida, in surprise.

"Very true," said Mrs. Harding, evasively; "but I was not able to have the care of you all the time. Didn't I ever mention Mrs. Hardwick to you?"

"No, mother."

"Although it is so long since I have seen her, I should have known her anywhere," said the nurse, applying a handkerchief to her eyes. "So pretty as she's grown up, too!"

Mrs. Harding glanced with pride at the beautiful child, who blushed at the compliment, a rare one, for her adopted mother, whatever she might think, did not approve of openly praising her appearance.

"Ida," said Mrs. Hardwick, "won't you come and kiss your old nurse?"

Ida looked at her hard face, which now wore a smile intended to express affection. Without knowing why, she felt an instinctive repugnance to this stranger, notwithstanding her words of endearment.

She advanced timidly, with a reluctance which she was not wholly able to conceal, and passively submitted to a caress from the nurse.

There was a look in the eyes of the nurse, carefully guarded, yet not wholly concealed, which showed that she was quite aware of Ida's feeling toward her, and resented it. But whether or not she was playing a part, she did not betray this feeling openly, but pressed the unwilling child more closely to her bosom.

Ida breathed a sigh of relief when she was released, and moved quietly away, wondering what it was that made the woman so disagreeable to her.

"Is my nurse a good woman?" she asked, thoughtfully, when alone with Mrs. Harding, who was setting the table for dinner.

"A good woman! What makes you ask that?" queried her adopted mother, in surprise.

"I don't know," said Ida.

"I don't know anything to indicate that she is otherwise," said Mrs. Harding. "And, by the way, Ida, she is going to take you on a little excursion to-morrow."

"She going to take me!" exclaimed Ida. "Why, where are we going?"

"On a little pleasure trip; and perhaps she may introduce you to a pleasant lady, who has already become interested in you, from what she has told her."

"What could she say of me?" inquired Ida. "She has not seen me since I was a baby."

"Why," answered the cooper's wife, a little puzzled, "she appears to have thought of you ever since, with a good deal of affection."

"Is it wicked," asked Ida, after a pause, "not to like those who like us?"

"What makes you ask?"

"Because, somehow or other, I don't like this Mrs. Hardwick, at all, for all she was my old nurse, and I don't believe I ever shall."

"Oh, yes, you will," said Mrs. Harding, "when you find she is exerting herself to give you pleasure."

"Am I going with her to-morrow morning?"

"Yes. She wanted you to go to-day, but your clothes were not in order."

"We shall come back at night, shan't we?"

"I presume so."

"I hope we shall," said Ida, decidedly, "and that she won't want me to go with her again."

"Perhaps you will feel differently when it is over, and you find you have enjoyed yourself better than you anticipated."

Mrs. Harding exerted herself to fit Ida up as neatly as possible, and when at length she was got ready, she thought with sudden fear: "Perhaps her mother will not be willing to part with her again."

When Ida was ready to start, there came upon all a little shadow of depression, as if the child were to be separated from them for a year, and not for a day only. Perhaps this was only natural, since even this latter term, however brief, was longer than they had been parted from her since, in her infancy, she had been left at their door.

The nurse expressly desired that none of the family should accompany her, as she declared it highly important that the whereabouts of Ida's mother should not be known.

"Of course," she added, "after Ida returns she can tell you what she pleases. Then it will be of no consequence, for her mother will be gone. She does not live in this neighborhood. She has only come here to see her child."

"Shall you bring her back to-night?" asked Mrs. Harding.

"I may keep her till to-morrow," said the nurse. "After seven years' absence her mother will think that short enough."

To this, Mrs. Harding agreed, though she felt that she should miss Ida, though absent but twenty-four hours.



CHAPTER XV

THE JOURNEY

The nurse walked as far as Broadway, holding Ida by the hand.

"Where are we going?" asked the child, timidly. "Are you going to walk all the way?"

"No," said the nurse; "not all the way—perhaps a mile. You can walk as far as that, can't you?"

"Oh, yes."

They walked on till they reached the ferry at the foot of Courtland Street.

"Did you ever ride in a steamboat?" asked the nurse, in a tone meant to be gracious.

"Once or twice," answered Ida. "I went with Brother Jack once, over to Hoboken. Are we going there now?"

"No; we are going to the city you see over the water."

"What place is it? Is it Brooklyn?"

"No; it is Jersey City."

"Oh, that will be pleasant," said Ida, forgetting, in her childish love of novelty, the repugnance with which the nurse had inspired her.

"Yes, and that is not all; we are going still further," said the nurse.

"Are we going further?" asked Ida, in excitement. "Where are we going?"

"To a town on the line of the railroad."

"And shall we ride in the cars?" asked Ida.

"Yes; didn't you ever ride in the cars?"

"No, never."

"I think you will like it."

"And how long will it take us to go to the place you are going to carry me to?"

"I don't know exactly; perhaps three hours."

"Three whole hours in the cars! How much I shall have to tell father and Jack when I get back!"

"So you will," replied Mrs. Hardwick, with an unaccountable smile—"when you get back."

There was something peculiar in her tone, but Ida did not notice it.

She was allowed to sit next the window in the cars, and took great pleasure in surveying the fields and villages through which they were rapidly whirled.

"Are we 'most there?" she asked, after riding about two hours.

"It won't be long," said the nurse.

"We must have come ever so many miles," said Ida.

"Yes, it is a good ways."

An hour more passed, and still there was no sign of reaching their journey's end. Both Ida and her companion began to feel hungry.

The nurse beckoned to her side a boy, who was selling apples and cakes, and inquired the price.

"The apples are two cents apiece, ma'am, and the cakes are one cent each."

Ida, who had been looking out of the window, turned suddenly round, and exclaimed, in great astonishment: "Why, Charlie Fitts, is that you?"

"Why, Ida, where did you come from?" asked the boy, with a surprise equaling her own.

"I'm making a little journey with this lady," said Ida.

"So you're going to Philadelphia?" said Charlie.

"To Philadelphia!" repeated Ida, surprised. "Not that I know of."

"Why, you're 'most there now."

"Are we, Mrs. Hardwick?" inquired Ida.

"It isn't far from where we're going," she answered, shortly. "Boy, I'll take two of your apples and four cakes. And, now, you'd better go along, for there's somebody over there that looks as if he wanted to buy something."

"Who is that boy?" asked the nurse, abruptly.

"His name is Charlie Fitts."

"Where did you get acquainted with him?"

"He went to school with Jack, so I used to see him sometimes."

"With Jack?"

"Yes, Brother Jack. Don't you know him?"

"Oh, yes, I forgot. So he's a schoolmate of Jack?"

"Yes, and he's a first-rate boy," said Ida, with whom the young apple merchant was evidently a favorite. "He's good to his mother. You see, his mother is sick most of the time, and can't work much; and he's got a little sister—she ain't more than four or five years old—and Charlie supports them by selling things. He's only sixteen years old; isn't he a smart boy?"

"Yes," said the nurse, indifferently.

"Sometime," continued Ida, "I hope I shall be able to earn something for father and mother, so they won't be obliged to work so hard."

"What could you do?" asked the nurse, curiously.

"I don't know as I can do much yet," answered Ida, modestly; "but perhaps when I am older I can draw pictures that people will buy."

"Have you got any of your drawings with you?"

"No, I didn't bring any."

"I wish you had. The lady we are going to see would have liked to see some of them."

"Are we going to see a lady?"

"Yes; didn't your mother tell you?"

"Yes, I believe she said something about a lady that was interested in me."

"That's the one."

"And shall we come back to New York to-night?"

"No; it wouldn't leave us any time to stay."

"West Philadelphia!" announced the conductor.

"We have arrived," said the nurse. "Keep close to me. Perhaps you had better take hold of my hand."

As they were making their way slowly through the crowd, the young apple merchant came up with his basket on his arm.

"When are you going back, Ida?" he asked.

"Mrs. Hardwick says not till to-morrow."

"Come, Ida," said the nurse, sharply. "I can't have you stopping all day to talk. We must hurry along."

"Good-by, Charlie," said Ida. "If you see Jack, just tell him you saw me."

"Yes, I will," was the reply.

"I wonder who that woman is with Ida?" thought the boy. "I don't like her looks much. I wonder if she's any relation of Mr. Harding. She looks about as pleasant as Aunt Rachel."

The last-mentioned lady would hardly have felt flattered at the comparison.

Ida looked about her with curiosity. There was a novel sensation in being in a new place, particularly a city of which she had heard so much as Philadelphia. As far back as she could remember, she had never left New York, except for a brief excursion to Hoboken; and one Fourth of July was made memorable by a trip to Staten Island, under the guardianship of Jack.

They entered a horse car just outside the depot, and rode probably a mile.

"We get out here," said the nurse. "Take care, or you'll get run over. Now turn down here."

They entered a narrow and dirty street, with unsightly houses on each side.

"This ain't a very nice-looking street," said Ida.

"Why isn't it?" demanded her companion, roughly.

"Why, it's narrow, and the houses don't look nice."

"What do you think of that house there?" asked Mrs. Hardwick, pointing to a dilapidated-looking structure on the right-hand side of the street.

"I shouldn't like to live there," answered Ida.

"You wouldn't, hey? You don't like it so well as the house you live in in New York?"

"No, not half so well."

The nurse smiled.

"Wouldn't you like to go in, and look at the house?"

"Go in and look at the house?" repeated Ida. "Why should we?"

"You must know there are some poor families living there that I am interested in," said Mrs. Hardwick, who appeared amused at something. "Didn't your mother ever tell you that it is our duty to help the poor?"

"Oh, yes, but won't it be late before we get to the lady?"

"No, there's plenty of time. You needn't be afraid of that. There's a poor man living in this house that I've made a good many clothes for, first and last."

"He must be much obliged to you," said Ida.

"We're going up to see him now," said her companion. "Take care of that hole in the stairs."

Somewhat to Ida's surprise, her guide, on reaching the first landing, opened a door without the ceremony of knocking, and revealed a poor, untidy room, in which a coarse, unshaven man was sitting, in his shirt sleeves, smoking a pipe.

"Hello!" exclaimed this individual, jumping up. "So you've got along, old woman! Is that the gal?"

Ida stared from one to the other in amazement.



CHAPTER XVI

UNEXPECTED QUARTERS

The appearance of the man whom Mrs. Hardwick addressed so familiarly was more picturesque than pleasing, He had a large, broad face, which, not having been shaved for a week, looked like a wilderness of stubble. His nose indicated habitual indulgence in alcoholic beverages. His eyes were bloodshot, and his skin looked coarse and blotched; his coat was thrown aside, displaying a shirt which bore evidence of having been useful in its day and generation. The same remark may apply to his nether integuments, which were ventilated at each knee, indicating a most praiseworthy regard to the laws of health.

Ida thought she had never seen so disgusting a man. She continued to gaze at him, half in astonishment, half in terror, till the object of her attention exclaimed:

"Well, little gal, what you're lookin' at? Hain't you never seen a gentleman before?"

Ida clung the closer to her companion, who, she was surprised to find, did not resent the man's familiarity.

"Well, Dick, how've you got along since I've been gone?" asked the nurse, to Ida's astonishment.

"Oh, so-so."

"Have you felt lonely any?"

"I've had good company."

"Who's been here?"

Dick pointed significantly to a jug.

"That's the best company I know of," he said, "but it's 'most empty. So you've brought along the gal," he continued. "How did you get hold of her?"

There was something in these questions which terrified Ida. It seemed to indicate a degree of complicity between these two which boded no good to her.

"I'll tell you the particulars by and by."

At the same time she began to take off her bonnet.

"You ain't going to stop, are you?" asked Ida, startled.

"Ain't goin' to stop?" repeated the man called Dick. "Why shouldn't she stop, I'd like to know? Ain't she at home?"

"At home!" echoed Ida, apprehensively, opening wide her eyes in astonishment.

"Yes; ask her."

Ida looked inquiringly at Mrs. Hardwick.

"You might as well take off your things," said the latter, grimly. "We ain't going any further to-day."

"And where's the lady you said you were going to see?"

"The one that was interested in you?"

"Yes."

"Well, I'm the one," she answered, with a broad smile and a glance at Dick.

"I don't want to stay here," said Ida, now frightened.

"Well, what are you going to do about it?"

"Will you take me back early to-morrow?" entreated Ida.

"No, I don't intend to take you back at all."

Ida seemed at first stupefied with astonishment and terror. Then, actuated by a sudden, desperate impulse, she ran to the door, and had got it partly open, when the nurse sprang forward, and seizing her by the arm, pulled her violently back.

"Where are you going in such a hurry?" she demanded.

"Back to father and mother," answered Ida, bursting into tears. "Oh, why did you bring me here?"

"I'll tell you why," answered Dick, jocularly. "You see, Ida, we ain't got any little girl to love us, and so we got you."

"But I don't love you, and I never shall," said Ida, indignantly.

"Now don't you go to saying that," said Dick. "You'll break my heart, you naughty girl, and then Peg will be a widow."

To give due effect to this pathetic speech, Dick drew out a tattered red handkerchief, and made a great demonstration of wiping his eyes.

The whole scene was so ludicrous that Ida, despite her fears and disgust, could not help laughing hysterically. She recovered herself instantly, and said imploringly: "Oh, do let me go, and father will pay you."

"You really think he would?" said Dick, in a tantalizing tone.

"Oh, yes; and you'll tell her to take me back, won't you?"

"No, he won't tell me any such thing," said Peg, gruffly; "so you may as well give up all thoughts of that first as last. You're going to stay here; so take off that bonnet of yours, and say no more about it."

Ida made no motion toward obeying this mandate.

"Then I'll do it for you," said Peg.

She roughly untied the bonnet—Ida struggling vainly in opposition—and taking this, with the shawl, carried them to a closet, in which she placed them, and then, locking the door, deliberately put the key in her pocket.

"There," said she, grimly, "I guess you're safe for the present."

"Ain't you ever going to carry me back?"

"Some years hence I may possibly," answered the woman, coolly. "We want you here for the present. Besides, you're not sure that they want you back."

"Not want me back again?"

"That's what I said. How do you know but your father and mother sent you off on purpose? They've been troubled with you long enough, and now they've bound you apprentice to me till you're eighteen."

"It's a lie!" said Ida, firmly. "They didn't send me off, and you're a wicked woman to tell me so."

"Hoity-toity!" said the woman. "Is that the way you dare to speak to me? Have you anything more to say before I whip you?"

"Yes," answered Ida, goaded to desperation. "I shall complain of you to the police, just as soon as I get a chance, and they will put you in jail and send me home. That is what I will do."

Mrs. Hardwick was incensed, and somewhat startled at these defiant words. It was clear that Ida was not going to be a meek, submissive child, whom they might ill-treat without apprehension. She was decidedly dangerous, and her insubordination must be nipped in the bud. She seized Ida roughly by the arm, and striding with her to the closet already spoken of, unlocked it, and, rudely pushing her in, locked the door after her.

"Stay there till you know how to behave," she said.

"How did you manage to come it over her family?" inquired Dick.

His wife gave substantially the account with which the reader is already familiar.

"Pretty well done, old woman!" exclaimed Dick, approvingly. "I always said you was a deep un. I always says, if Peg can't find out how a thing is to be done, then it can't be done, nohow."

"How about the counterfeit coin?" she asked.

"We're to be supplied with all we can put off, and we are to have half for our trouble."

"That is good. When the girl, Ida, gets a little tamed down, we'll give her something to do."

"Is it safe? Won't she betray us?"

"We'll manage that, or at least I will. I'll work on her fears, so she won't any more dare to say a word about us than to cut her own head off."

"All right, Peg. I can trust you to do what's right."

Ida sank down on the floor of the closet into which she had been thrust. Utter darkness was around her, and a darkness as black seemed to hang over all her prospects of future happiness. She had been snatched in a moment from parents, or those whom she regarded as such, and from a comfortable and happy, though humble home, to this dismal place. In place of the kindness and indulgence to which she had been accustomed, she was now treated with harshness and cruelty.



CHAPTER XVII

SUSPENSE

"It doesn't, somehow, seem natural," said the cooper, as he took his seat at the tea table, "to sit down without Ida. It seems as if half the family were gone."

"Just what I've said to myself twenty times to-day," remarked his wife. "Nobody can tell how much a child is to them till they lose it."

"Not lose it," corrected Jack.

"I didn't mean to say that."

"When you used that word, mother, it made me feel just as if Ida wasn't coming back."

"I don't know why it is," said Mrs. Harding, thoughtfully, "but I've had that same feeling several times today. I've felt just as if something or other would happen to prevent Ida's coming back."

"That is only because she's never been away before," said the cooper, cheerfully. "It isn't best to borrow trouble, Martha; we shall have enough of it without."

"You never said a truer word, brother," said Rachel, mournfully. "Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. This world is a vale of tears, and a home of misery. Folks may try and try to be happy, but that isn't what they're sent here for."

"You never tried very hard, Aunt Rachel," said Jack.

"It's my fate to be misjudged," said his aunt, with the air of a martyr.

"I don't agree with you in your ideas about life, Rachel," said her brother. "Just as there are more pleasant than stormy days, so I believe there is much more of brightness than shadow in this life of ours, if we would only see it."

"I can't see it," said Rachel.

"It seems to me, Rachel, you take more pains to look at the clouds than the sun."

"Yes," chimed in Jack, "I've noticed whenever Aunt Rachel takes up the newspaper, she always looks first at the deaths, and next at the fatal accidents and steamboat explosions."

"If," retorted Rachel, with severe emphasis, "you should ever be on board a steamboat when it exploded, you wouldn't find much to laugh at."

"Yes, I should," said Jack, "I should laugh—"

"What!" exclaimed Rachel, horrified.

"On the other side of my mouth," concluded Jack. "You didn't wait till I'd finished the sentence."

"I don't think it proper to make light of such serious matters."

"Nor I Aunt Rachel," said Jack, drawing down the corners of his mouth. "I am willing to confess that this is a serious matter. I should feel as they say the cow did, that was thrown three hundred feet up into the air."

"How's that?" inquired his mother.

"Rather discouraged," answered Jack.

All laughed except Aunt Rachel, who preserved the same severe composure, and continued to eat the pie upon her plate with the air of one gulping down medicine.

In the morning all felt more cheerful.

"Ida will be home to-night," said Mrs. Harding, brightly. "What an age it seems since she went away! Who'd think it was only twenty-four hours?"

"We shall know better how to appreciate her when we get her back," said her husband.

"What time do you expect her home, mother? What did Mrs. Hardwick say?"

"Why," said Mrs. Harding, hesitating, "she didn't say as to the hour; but I guess she'll be along in the course of the afternoon."

"If we only knew where she had gone, we could tell better when to expect her."

"But as we don't know," said the cooper, "we must wait patiently till she comes."

"I guess," said Mrs. Harding, with the impulse of a notable housewife, "I'll make some apple turnovers for supper to-night. There's nothing Ida likes so well."

"That's where Ida is right," said Jack, smacking his lips. "Apple turnovers are splendid."

"They are very unwholesome," remarked Rachel.

"I shouldn't think so from the way you eat them, Aunt Rachel," retorted Jack. "You ate four the last time we had them for supper."

"I didn't think you'd begrudge me the little I eat," said his aunt, dolefully. "I didn't think you counted the mouthfuls I took."

"Come, Rachel, don't be so unreasonable," said her brother. "Nobody begrudges you what you eat, even if you choose to eat twice as much as you do. I dare say Jack ate more of the turnovers than you did."

"I ate six," said Jack, candidly.

Rachel, construing this into an apology, said no more.

"If it wasn't for you, Aunt Rachel, I should be in danger of getting too jolly, perhaps, and spilling over. It always makes me sober to look at you."

"It's lucky there's something to make you sober and stiddy," said his aunt. "You are too frivolous."

Evening came, but it did not bring Ida. An indefinable sense of apprehension oppressed the minds of all. Martha feared that Ida's mother, finding her so attractive, could not resist the temptation of keeping her.

"I suppose," she said, "that she has the best claim to her, but it would be a terrible thing for us to part with her."

"Don't let us trouble ourselves about that," said Timothy. "It seems to me very natural that her mother should keep her a little longer than she intended. Think how long it is since she saw her. Besides, it is not too late for her to return to-night."

At length there came a knock at the door.

"I guess that is Ida," said Mrs. Harding, joyfully.

Jack seized a candle, and hastening to the door, threw it open. But there was no Ida there. In her place stood Charlie Fitts, the boy who had met Ida in the cars.

"How are you, Charlie?" said Jack, trying not to look disappointed. "Come in and tell us all the news."

"Well," said Charlie, "I don't know of any. I suppose Ida has got home?"

"No," answered Jack; "we expected her to-night, but she hasn't come yet."

"She told me she expected to come back to-day."

"What! have you seen her?" exclaimed all, in chorus.

"Yes; I saw her yesterday noon."

"Where?"

"Why, in the cars," answered Charlie.

"What cars?" asked the cooper.

"Why, the Philadelphia cars. Of course you knew it was there she was going?"

"Philadelphia!" exclaimed all, in surprise.

"Yes, the cars were almost there when I saw her. Who was that with her?"

"Mrs. Hardwick, her old nurse."

"I didn't like her looks."

"That's where we paddle in the same canoe," said Jack.

"She didn't seem to want me to speak to Ida," continued Charlie, "but hurried her off as quick as possible."

"There were reasons for that," said the cooper. "She wanted to keep her destination secret."

"I don't know what it was," said the boy, "but I don't like the woman's looks."



CHAPTER XVIII

HOW IDA FARED

We left Ida confined in a dark closet, with Peg standing guard over her.

After an hour she was released.

"Well," said the nurse, grimly, "how do you feel now?"

"I want to go home," sobbed the child.

"You are at home," said the woman.

"Shall I never see father, and mother, and Jack again?"

"That depends on how you behave yourself."

"Oh, if you will only let me go," pleaded Ida, gathering hope from this remark, "I'll do anything you say."

"Do you mean this, or do you only say it for the sake of getting away?"

"I mean just what I say. Dear, good Mrs. Hardwick, tell me what to do, and I will obey you cheerfully."

"Very well," said Peg, "only you needn't try to come it over me by calling me dear, good Mrs. Hardwick. In the first place, you don't care a cent about me; in the second place, I am not good; and finally, my name isn't Mrs. Hardwick, except in New York."

"What is it, then?" asked Ida.

"It's just Peg, no more and no less. You may call me Aunt Peg."

"I would rather call you Mrs. Hardwick."

"Then you'll have a good many years to call me so. You'd better do as I tell you, if you want any favors. Now what do you say?"

"Yes, Aunt Peg," said Ida, with a strong effort to conceal her repugnance.

"That's well. Now you're not to tell anybody that you came from New York. That is very important; and you're to pay your board by doing whatever I tell you."

"If it isn't wicked."

"Do you suppose I would ask you to do anything wicked?" demanded Peg, frowning.

"You said you wasn't good," mildly suggested Ida.

"I'm good enough to take care of you. Well, what do you say to that? Answer me?"

"Yes."

"There's another thing. You ain't to try to run away."

Ida hung down her head.

"Ha!" exclaimed Peg. "So you've been thinking of it, have you?"

"Yes," answered Ida, boldly, after a moment's hesitation. "I did think I should if I got a good chance."

"Humph!" said the woman, "I see we must understand one another. Unless you promise this, back you go into the dark closet, and I shall keep you there."

Ida shuddered at this fearful threat—terrible to a child of but eight years.

"Do you promise?"

"Yes," said Ida, faintly.

"For fear you might be tempted to break your promise, I have something to show you."

Mrs. Hardwick went to the closet, and took down a large pistol.

"There," she said, "do you see that?"

"Yes, Aunt Peg."

"Do you know what it is for?"

"To shoot people with," answered the child.

"Yes," said the nurse; "I see you understand. Well, now, do you know what I would do if you should tell anybody where you came from, or attempt to run away? Can you guess, now?"

"Would you shoot me?" asked Ida, terror-stricken.

"Yes, I would," said Peg, with fierce emphasis. "That's just what I'd do. And what's more even if you got away, and got back to your family in New York, I would follow you, and shoot you dead in the street."

"You wouldn't be so wicked!" exclaimed Ida.

"Wouldn't I, though?" repeated Peg, significantly. "If you don't believe I would, just try it. Do you think you would like to try it?" she asked, fiercely.

"No," answered Ida, with a shudder.

"Well, that's the most sensible thing you've said yet. Now that you are a little more reasonable, I'll tell you what I am going to do with you."

Ida looked eagerly up into her face.

"I am going to keep you with me for a year. I want the services of a little girl for that time. If you serve me faithfully, I will then send you back to New York."

"Will you?" asked Ida, hopefully.

"Yes, but you must mind and do what I tell you."

"Oh, yes," said Ida, joyfully.

This was so much better than she had been led to fear, that the prospect of returning home at all, even though she had to wait a year, encouraged her.

"What do you want me to do?" she asked.

"You may take the broom and sweep the room."

"Yes, Aunt Peg."

"And then you may wash the dishes."

"Yes, Aunt Peg."

"And after that, I will find something else for you to do."

Mrs. Hardwick threw herself into a rocking-chair, and watched with grim satisfaction the little handmaiden, as she moved quickly about.

"I took the right course with her," she said to herself. "She won't any more dare to run away than to chop her hands off. She thinks I'll shoot her."

And the unprincipled woman chuckled to herself.

Ida heard her indistinctly, and asked, timidly:

"Did you speak, Aunt Peg?"

"No, I didn't; just attend to your work and don't mind me. Did your mother make you work?"

"No; I went to school."

"Time you learned. I'll make a smart woman of you."

The next morning Ida was asked if she would like to go out into the street.

"I am going to let you do a little shopping. There are various things we want. Go and get your hat."

"It's in the closet," said Ida.

"Oh, yes, I put it there. That was before I could trust you."

She went to the closet and returned with the child's hat and shawl. As soon as the two were ready they emerged into the street.

"This is a little better than being shut up in the closet, isn't it?" asked her companion.

"Oh, yes, ever so much."

"You see you'll have a very good time of it, if you do as I bid you. I don't want to do you any harm."

So they walked along together until Peg, suddenly pausing, laid her hands on Ida's arm, and pointing to a shop near by, said to her: "Do you see that shop?"

"Yes," said Ida.

"I want you to go in and ask for a couple of rolls. They come to three cents apiece. Here's some money to pay for them. It is a new dollar. You will give this to the man that stands behind the counter, and he will give you back ninety-four cents. Do you understand?"

"Yes," said Ida, nodding her head. "I think I do."

"And if the man asks if you have anything smaller, you will say no."

"Yes, Aunt Peg."

"I will stay just outside. I want you to go in alone, so you will learn to manage without me."

Ida entered the shop. The baker, a pleasant-looking man, stood behind the counter.

"Well, my dear, what is it?" he asked.

"I should like a couple of rolls."

"For your mother, I suppose?" said the baker.

"No," answered Ida, "for the woman I board with."

"Ha! a dollar bill, and a new one, too," said the baker, as Ida tendered it in payment. "I shall have to save that for my little girl."

Ida left the shop with the two rolls and the silver change.

"Did he say anything about the money?" asked Peg.

"He said he should save it for his little girl."

"Good!" said the woman. "You've done well."



CHAPTER XIX

BAD MONEY

The baker introduced in the foregoing chapter was named Harding. Singularly, Abel Harding was a brother of Timothy Harding, the cooper.

In many respects he resembled his brother. He was an excellent man, exemplary in all the relations of life, and had a good heart. He was in very comfortable circumstances, having accumulated a little property by diligent attention to his business. Like his brother, Abel Harding had married, and had one child. She had received the name of Ellen.

When the baker closed his shop for the night, he did not forget the new dollar, which he had received, or the disposal he told Ida he would make of it.

Ellen ran to meet her father as he entered the house.

"What do you think I have brought you, Ellen?" he said, with a smile.

"Do tell me quick," said the child, eagerly.

"What if I should tell you it was a new dollar?"

"Oh, papa, thank you!" and Ellen ran to show it to her mother.

"Yes," said the baker, "I received it from a little girl about the size of Ellen, and I suppose it was that that gave me the idea of bringing it home to her."

This was all that passed concerning Ida at that time. The thought of her would have passed from the baker's mind, if it had not been recalled by circumstances.

Ellen, like most girls of her age, when in possession of money, could not be easy until she had spent it. Her mother advised her to deposit it in some savings bank; but Ellen preferred present gratification.

Accordingly, one afternoon, when walking out with her mother, she persuaded her to go into a toy shop, and price a doll which she saw in the window. The price was seventy-five cents. Ellen concluded to buy it, and her mother tendered the dollar in payment.

The shopman took it in his hand, glanced at it carelessly at first, then scrutinized it with increased attention.

"What is the matter?" inquired Mrs. Harding. "It is good, isn't it?"

"That is what I am doubtful of," was the reply.

"It is new."

"And that is against it. If it were old, it would be more likely to be genuine."

"But you wouldn't condemn a bill because it is new?"

"Certainly not; but the fact is, there have been lately many cases where counterfeit bills have been passed, and I suspect this is one of them. However, I can soon ascertain."

"I wish you would," said the baker's wife. "My husband took it at his shop, and will be likely to take more unless he is put on his guard."

The shopman sent it to the bank where it was pronounced counterfeit.

Mr. Harding was much surprised at his wife's story.

"Really!" he said. "I had no suspicion of this. Can it be possible that such a young and beautiful child could be guilty of such an offense?"

"Perhaps not," answered his wife. "She may be as innocent in the matter as Ellen or myself."

"I hope so," said the baker; "it would be a pity that so young a child should be given to wickedness. However, I shall find out before long."

"How?"

"She will undoubtedly come again sometime."

The baker watched daily for the coming of Ida. He waited some days in vain. It was not Peg's policy to send the child too often to the same place, as that would increase the chances of detection.

One day, however, Ida entered the shop as before.

"Good-morning," said the baker; "what will you have to-day?"

"You may give me a sheet of gingerbread, sir."

The baker placed it in her hand.

"How much will it be?"

"Twelve cents."

Ida offered him another new bill.

As if to make change, he stepped from behind the counter and placed himself between Ida and the door.

"What is your name, my child?" he asked.

"Ida, sir."

"Ida? But what is your other name?"

Ida hesitated a moment, because Peg had forbidden her to use the name of Harding, and had told her, if ever the inquiry were made, she must answer Hardwick.

She answered reluctantly: "Ida Hardwick."

The baker observed her hesitation, and this increased his suspicion.

"Hardwick!" he repeated, musingly, endeavoring to draw from the child as much information as possible before allowing her to perceive that he suspected her. "And where do you live?"

Ida was a child of spirit, and did not understand why she should be questioned so closely.

She said, with some impatience: "I am in a hurry, sir, and would like to have the change as soon as you can."

"I have no doubt of it," said the baker, his manner suddenly changing, "but you cannot go just yet."

"Why not?" asked Ida.

"Because you have been trying to deceive me."

"I trying to deceive you!" exclaimed Ida.

"Really," thought Mr. Harding, "she does it well; but no doubt she is trained to it. It is perfectly shocking, such artful depravity in a child."

"Don't you remember buying something here a week ago?" he asked, in as stern a tone as his good nature would allow him to employ.

"Yes," answered Ida, promptly; "I bought two rolls, at three cents apiece."

"And what did you offer me in payment?"

"I handed you a dollar bill."

"Like this?" asked the baker, holding up the one she had just offered him.

"Yes, sir."

"And do you mean to say," demanded the baker, sternly, "that you didn't know it was bad when you offered it to me?"

"Bad!" gasped Ida.

"Yes, spurious. Not as good as blank paper."

"Indeed, sir, I didn't know anything about it," said Ida, earnestly; "I hope you'll believe me when I say that I thought it was good."

"I don't know what to think," said the baker, perplexed. "Who gave you the money?"

"The woman I board with."

"Of course I can't give you the gingerbread. Some men, in my place, would deliver you up to the police. But I will let you go, if you will make me one promise."

"Oh, I will promise anything, sir," said Ida.

"You have given me a bad dollar. Will you promise to bring me a good one to-morrow?"

Ida made the required promise, and was allowed to go.



CHAPTER XX

DOUBTS AND FEARS

"Well, what kept you so long?" asked Peg, impatiently, as Ida rejoined her at the corner of the street. "I thought you were going to stay all the forenoon. And Where's your gingerbread?"

"He wouldn't let me have it," answered Ida.

"And why wouldn't he let you have it?" said Peg.

"Because he said the money wasn't good."

"Stuff and nonsense! It's good enough. However, it's no matter. We'll go somewhere else."

"But he said the money I gave him last week wasn't good, and I promised to bring him another to-morrow, or he wouldn't have let me go."

"Well, where are you going to get your dollar?"

"Why, won't you give it to me?" said the child.

"Catch me at such nonsense!" said Mrs. Hardwick, contemptuously. "I ain't quite a fool. But here we are at another shop. Go in and see if you can do any better there. Here's the money."

"Why, it's the same bill I gave you."

"What if it is?"

"I don't want to pass bad money."

"Tut! What hurt will it do?"

"It's the same as stealing."

"The man won't lose anything. He'll pass it off again."

"Somebody'll have to lose it by and by," said Ida.

"So you've taken up preaching, have you?" said Peg, sneeringly. "Maybe you know better than I what is proper to do. It won't do for you to be so mighty particular, and so you'll find out, if you stay with me long."

"Where did you get the dollar?" asked Ida; "and how is it you have so many of them?"

"None of your business. You mustn't pry into the affairs of other people. Are you going to do as I told you?" she continued, menacingly.

"I can't," answered Ida, pale but resolute.

"You can't!" repeated Peg, furiously. "Didn't you promise to do whatever I told you?"

"Except what was wicked," interposed Ida.

"And what business have you to decide what is wicked? Come home with me."

Peg seized the child's hand, and walked on in sullen silence, occasionally turning to scowl upon Ida, who had been strong enough, in her determination to do right, to resist successfully the will of the woman whom she had so much reason to dread.

Arrived at home, Peg walked Ida into the room by the shoulder. Dick was lounging in a chair.

"Hillo!" said he, lazily, observing his wife's frowning face. "What's the gal been doin', hey?"

"What's she been doing?" repeated Peg. "I should like to know what she hasn't been doing. She's refused to go in and buy gingerbread of the baker."

"Look here, little gal," said Dick, in a moralizing vein, "isn't this rayther undootiful conduct on your part? Ain't it a piece of ingratitude, when Peg and I go to the trouble of earning the money to pay for gingerbread for you to eat, that you ain't even willin' to go in and buy it?"

"I would just as lieve go in," said Ida, "if Peg would give me good money to pay for it."

"That don't make any difference," said the admirable moralist. "It's your dooty to do just as she tells you, and you'll do right. She'll take the risk."

"I can't," said the child.

"You hear her!" said Peg.

"Very improper conduct!" said Dick, shaking his head in grave reproval. "Little gal, I'm ashamed of you. Put her in the closet, Peg."

"Come along," said Peg, harshly. "I'll show you how I deal with those that don't obey me."

So Ida was incarcerated once more in the dark closet. Yet in the midst of her desolation, child as she was, she was sustained and comforted by the thought that she was suffering for doing right.

When Ida failed to return on the appointed day, the Hardings, though disappointed, did not think it strange.

"If I were her mother," said the cooper's wife, "and had been parted from her for so long, I should want to keep her as long as I could. Dear heart! how pretty she is and how proud her mother must be of her!"

"It's all a delusion," said Rachel, shaking her head, solemnly. "It's all a delusion. I don't believe she's got a mother at all. That Mrs. Hardwick is an impostor. I know it, and told you so at the time, but you wouldn't believe me. I never expect to set eyes on Ida again in this world."

The next day passed, and still no tidings of Jack's ward. Her young guardian, though not as gloomy as Aunt Rachel, looked unusually serious.

There was a cloud of anxiety even upon the cooper's usually placid face, and he was more silent than usual at the evening meal. At night, after Jack and his aunt had retired, he said, anxiously: "What do you think is the cause of Ida's prolonged absence, Martha?"

"I can't tell," said his wife, seriously. "It seems to me, if her mother wanted to keep her longer it would be no more than right that she should drop us a line. She must know that we would feel anxious."

"Perhaps she is so taken up with Ida that she can think of no one else."

"It may be so; but if we neither see Ida to-morrow, nor hear from her, I shall be seriously troubled."

"Suppose she should never come back," suggested the cooper, very soberly.

"Oh, husband, don't hint at such a thing," said his wife.

"We must contemplate it as a possibility," said Timothy, gravely, "though not, as I hope, as a probability. Ida's mother has an undoubted right to her."

"Then it would be better if she had never been placed in our charge," said Martha, tearfully, "for we should not have had the pain of parting with her."

"Not so, Martha," her husband said, seriously. "We ought to be grateful for God's blessings, even if He suffers us to retain them but a short time. And Ida has been a blessing to us all, I am sure. The memory of that can't be taken from us, Martha. There's some lines I came across in the paper to-night that express just what I've been sayin'. Let me find them."

The cooper put on his spectacles, and hunted slowly down the columns of the daily paper till he came to these beautiful lines of Tennyson, which he read aloud:

"'I hold it true, whate'er befall; I feel it when I sorrow most; 'Tis better to have loved and lost, Than never to have loved at all.'"

"There, wife," he said, as he laid down the paper; "I don't know who writ them lines, but I'm sure it's some one that's met with a great sorrow and conquered it."

"They are beautiful," said his wife, after a pause; "and I dare say you're right, Timothy; but I hope we mayn't have to learn the truth of them by experience. After all, it isn't certain but that Ida will come back."

"At any rate," said her husband, "there is no doubt that it is our duty to take every means that we can to recover Ida. Of course, if her mother insists upon keepin' her, we can't say anything; but we ought to be sure of that before we yield her up."

"What do you mean, Timothy?" asked Martha.

"I don't know as I ought to mention it," said the cooper. "Very likely there isn't anything in it, and it would only make you feel more anxious."

"You have already aroused my anxiety. I should feel better if you would speak out."

"Then I will," said the cooper. "I have sometimes been tempted," he continued, lowering his voice, "to doubt whether Ida's mother really sent for her."

"How do you account for the letter, then?"

"I have thought—mind, it is only a guess—that Mrs. Hardwick may have got somebody to write it for her."

"It is very singular," murmured Martha.

"What is singular?"

"Why, the very same thought has occurred to me. Somehow, I can't help feeling a little distrustful of Mrs. Hardwick, though perhaps unjustly. What object can she have in getting possession of the child?"

"That I can't conjecture; but I have come to one determination."

"What is that?"

"Unless we learn something of Ida within a week from the time she left here, I shall go on to Philadelphia, or else send Jack, and endeavor to get track of her."



CHAPTER XXI

AUNT RACHEL'S MISHAPS

The week slipped away, and still no tidings of Ida. The house seemed lonely without her. Not until then did they understand how largely she had entered into their life and thoughts. But worse even than the sense of loss was the uncertainty as to her fate.

"It is time that we took some steps about finding Ida," the cooper said. "I would like to go to Philadelphia myself, to make inquiries about her, but I am just now engaged upon a job which I cannot very well leave, and so I have concluded to send Jack."

"When shall I start?" exclaimed Jack.

"To-morrow morning," answered his father.

"What good do you think it will do," interposed Rachel, "to send a mere boy like Jack to Philadelphia?"

"A mere boy!" repeated her nephew, indignantly.

"A boy hardly sixteen years old," continued Rachel. "Why, he'll need somebody to take care of him. Most likely you'll have to go after him."

"What's the use of provoking a fellow so, Aunt Rachel?" said Jack. "You know I'm 'most eighteen. Hardly sixteen! Why, I might as well say you're hardly forty, when we all know you're fifty."

"Fifty!" ejaculated the scandalized spinster. "It's a base slander. I'm only thirty-seven."

"Maybe I'm mistaken," said Jack, carelessly. "I didn't know exactly how old you were; I only judged from your looks."

At this point, Rachel applied a segment of a pocket handkerchief to her eyes; but, unfortunately, owing to circumstances, the effect instead of being pathetic, as she intended it to be, was simply ludicrous.

It so happened that a short time previous, the inkstand had been partially spilled upon the table, through Jack's carelessness and this handkerchief had been used to sop it up. It had been placed inadvertently upon the window seat, where it had remained until Rachel, who was sitting beside the window, called it into requisition. The ink upon it was by no means dry. The consequence was, that, when Rachel removed it from her eyes, her face was discovered to be covered with ink in streaks mingling with the tears that were falling, for Rachel always had a plentiful supply of tears at command.

The first intimation the luckless spinster had of her mishap was conveyed in a stentorian laugh from Jack.

He looked intently at the dark traces of sorrow on his aunt's face—of which she was yet unconscious—and doubling up, went off into a perfect paroxysm of laughter.

"Jack!" said his mother, reprovingly, for she had not observed the cause of his amusement, "it's improper for you to laugh at your aunt in such a rude manner."

"Oh, I can't help it, mother. Just look at her."

Thus invited, Mrs. Harding did look, and the rueful expression of Rachel, set off by the inky stains, was so irresistibly comical, that, after a hard struggle, she too gave way, and followed Jack's example.

Astonished and indignant at this unexpected behavior of her sister-in-law, Rachel burst into a fresh fit of weeping, and again had recourse to the handkerchief.

"This is too much!" she sobbed. "I've stayed here long enough, if even my sister-in-law, as well as my own nephew, from whom I expect nothing better, makes me her laughingstock. Brother Timothy, I can no longer remain in your dwelling to be laughed at; I will go to the poorhouse and end my miserable existence as a common pauper. If I only receive Christian burial when I leave the world, it will be all I hope or expect from my relatives, who will be glad enough to get rid of me."

The second application of the handkerchief had so increased the effect, that Jack found it impossible to check his laughter, while the cooper, whose attention was now drawn to his sister's face, burst out in a similar manner.

This more amazed Rachel than Martha's merriment.

"Even you, Timothy, join in ridiculing your sister!" she exclaimed, in an "Et tu, Brute" tone.

"We don't mean to ridicule you, Rachel," gasped her sister-in-law, "but we can't help laughing."

"At the prospect of my death!" uttered Rachel, in a tragic tone. "Well, I'm a poor, forlorn creetur, I know. Even my nearest relations make sport of me, and when I speak of dying, they shout their joy to my face."

"Yes," gasped Jack, nearly choking, "that's it exactly. It isn't your death we're laughing at, but your face."

"My face!" exclaimed the insulted spinster. "One would think I was a fright by the way you laugh at it."

"So you are!" said Jack, with a fresh burst of laughter.

"To be called a fright to my face!" shrieked Rachel, "by my own nephew! This is too much. Timothy, I leave your house forever."

The excited maiden seized her hood; which was hanging from a nail, and was about to leave the house when she was arrested in her progress toward the door by the cooper, who stifled his laughter sufficiently to say: "Before you go, Rachel, just look in the glass."

Mechanically his sister did look, and her horrified eyes rested upon a face streaked with inky spots and lines seaming it in every direction.

In her first confusion Rachel jumped to the conclusion that she had been suddenly stricken by the plague. Accordingly she began to wring her hands in an excess of terror, and exclaimed in tones of piercing anguish:

"It is the fatal plague spot! I am marked for the tomb. The sands of my life are fast running out."

This convulsed Jack afresh with merriment, so that an observer might, not without reason, have imagined him to be in imminent danger of suffocation.

"You'll kill me, Aunt Rachel! I know you will," he gasped.

"You may order my coffin, Timothy," said Rachel, in a sepulchral voice; "I shan't live twenty-four hours. I've felt it coming on for a week past. I forgive you for all your ill-treatment. I should like to have some one go for the doctor, though I know I'm past help."

"I think," said the cooper, trying to look sober, "you will find the cold-water treatment efficacious in removing the plague spots, as you call them."

Rachel turned toward him with a puzzled look. Then, as her eyes rested for the first time upon the handkerchief she had used, its appearance at once suggested a clew by which she was enabled to account for her own.

Somewhat ashamed of the emotion which she had betrayed, as well as the ridiculous figure which she had cut, she left the room abruptly, and did not make her appearance again till the next morning.

After this little episode, the conversation turned upon Jack's approaching journey.

"I don't know," said his mother, "but Rachel is right. Perhaps Jack isn't old enough, and hasn't had sufficient experience to undertake such a mission."

"Now, mother," expostulated Jack, "you ain't going to side against me, are you?"

"There is no better plan," said his father, quietly.



CHAPTER XXII

THE FLOWER GIRL

Henry Bowen was a young artist of moderate talent, who had abandoned the farm on which he had labored as a boy, for the sake of pursuing his favorite profession. He was not competent to achieve the highest success. But he had good taste and a skillful hand, and his productions were pleasing and popular. He had formed a connection with a publisher of prints and engravings, who had thrown considerable work in his way.

"Have you any new commission to-day?" inquired the young artist, on the day before Ida's discovery that she had been employed to pass off spurious coin.

"Yes," said the publisher, "I have thought of something which may prove attractive. Just at present, pictures of children seem to be popular. I should like to have you supply me with a sketch of a flower girl, with, say, a basket of flowers in her hand. Do you comprehend my idea?"

"I believe I do," answered the artist. "Give me sufficient time, and I hope to satisfy you."

The young artist went home, and at once set to work upon the task he had undertaken. He had conceived that it would be an easy one, but found himself mistaken. Whether because his fancy was not sufficiently lively, or his mind was not in tune, he was unable to produce the effect he desired. The faces which he successively outlined were all stiff, and though beautiful in feature, lacked the great charm of being expressive and lifelike.

"What is the matter with me?" he exclaimed, impatiently. "Is it impossible for me to succeed? It's clear," he decided, "that I am not in the vein. I will go out and take a walk, and perhaps while I am in the street something may strike me."

He accordingly donned his coat and hat, and emerged into the great thoroughfare, where he was soon lost in the throng. It was only natural that, as he walked, with his task uppermost in his thoughts, he should scrutinize carefully the faces of such young girls as he met.

"Perhaps," it occurred to him, "I may get a hint from some face I see. It is strange," he mused, "how few there are, even in the freshness of childhood, that can be called models of beauty. That child, for example, has beautiful eyes, but a badly cut mouth. Here is one that would be pretty, if the face were rounded out; and here is a child—Heaven help it!—that was designed to be beautiful, but want and unfavorable circumstances have pinched and cramped it."

It was at this point in the artist's soliloquy that, in turning the corner of a street, he came upon Peg and Ida.

The artist looked earnestly at the child's face, and his own lighted up with sudden pleasure, as one who stumbles upon success just as he had begun to despair of it.

"The very face I have been looking for!" he exclaimed to himself. "My flower girl is found at last."

He turned round, and followed Ida and her companion. Both stopped at a shop window to examine some articles which were on exhibition there.

"It is precisely the face I want," he murmured. "Nothing could be more appropriate or charming. With that face the success of the picture is assured."

The artist's inference that Peg was Ida's attendant was natural, since the child was dressed in a style quite superior to her companion. Peg thought that this would enable her, with less risk, to pass spurious coin.

The young man followed the strangely assorted pair to the apartments which Peg occupied. From the conversation which he overheard he learned that he had been mistaken in his supposition as to the relation between the two, and that, singular as it seemed, Peg had the guardianship of the child. This made his course clearer. He mounted the stairs and knocked at the door.

"What do you want?" demanded a sharp voice.

"I should like to see you just a moment," was the reply.

Peg opened the door partially, and regarded the young man suspiciously.

"I don't know you," she said, shortly.

"I presume not," said the young man, courteously. "We have never met, I think. I am an artist. I hope you will pardon my present intrusion."

"There is no use in your coming here," said Peg, abruptly, "and you may as well go away. I don't want to buy any pictures. I've got plenty of better ways to spend my money than to throw it away on such trash."

No one would have thought of doubting Peg's word, for she looked far from being a patron of the arts.

"You have a young girl living with you, about seven or eight years old, have you not?" inquired the artist.

Peg instantly became suspicious.

"Who told you that?" she demanded, quickly.

"No one told me. I saw her in the street."

Peg at once conceived the idea that her visitor was aware of the fact that the child had been lured away from home; possibly he might be acquainted with the cooper's family? or might be their emissary.

"Suppose you did see such a child on the street, what has that to do with me?"

"But I saw the child entering this house with you."

"What if you did?" demanded Peg, defiantly.

"I was about," said the artist, perceiving that he was misapprehended, "I was about to make a proposition which may prove advantageous to both of us."

"Eh!" said Peg, catching at the hint. "Tell me what it is and we may come to terms."

"I must explain," said Bowen, "that I am an artist. In seeking for a face to sketch from, I have been struck by that of your child."

"Of Ida?"

"Yes, if that is her name. I will pay you five dollars if you will allow me to copy her face."

"Well," she said, more graciously, "if that's all you want, I don't know as I have any objections. I suppose you can copy her face here as well as anywhere?"

"I should prefer to have her come to my studio."

"I shan't let her come," said Peg, decidedly.

"Then I will consent to your terms, and come here."

"Do you want to begin now?"

"I should like to do so."

"Come in, then. Here, Ida, I want you."

"Yes, Peg."

"This gentleman wants to copy your face."

Ida looked surprised.

"I am an artist," said the young man, with a reassuring smile. "I will endeavor not to try your patience too much, or keep you too long. Do you think you can stand still for half an hour without too much fatigue?"

He kept her in pleasant conversation, while, with a free, bold hand he sketched the outlines of her face.

"I shall want one more sitting," he said. "I will come to-morrow at this time."

"Stop a minute," said Peg. "I should like the money in advance. How do I know you will come again?"

"Certainly, if you desire it," said Henry Bowen.

"What strange fortune," he thought, "can have brought them together? Surely there can be no relation between this sweet child and that ugly old woman!"

The next day he returned and completed his sketch, which was at once placed in the hands of the publisher, eliciting his warm approval.



CHAPTER XXIII

JACK OBTAINS INFORMATION

Jack set out with that lightness of heart and keen sense of enjoyment that seem natural to a young man of eighteen on his first journey. Partly by boat, partly by cars, he traveled, till in a few hours he was discharged, with hundreds of others, at the depot in Philadelphia.

He rejected all invitations to ride, and strode on, carpetbag in hand, though, sooth to say, he had very little idea whether he was steering in the right direction for his uncle's shop. By dint of diligent and persevering inquiry he found it at last, and walking in, announced himself to the worthy baker as his nephew Jack.

"What? Are you Jack?" exclaimed Mr. Abel Harding, pausing in his labor. "Well, I never should have known you, that's a fact. Bless me, how you've grown! Why, you're 'most as big as your father, ain't you?"

"Only half an inch shorter," answered Jack, complacently.

"And you're—let me see—how old are you?"

"Eighteen; that is, almost. I shall be in two months."

"Well, I'm glad to see you, Jack, though I hadn't the least idea of your raining down so unexpectedly. How's your father and mother and your adopted sister?"

"Father and mother are pretty well," answered Jack; "and so is Aunt Rachel," he continued, smiling, "though she ain't so cheerful as she might be."

"Poor Rachel!" said Abel, smiling also. "Everything goes contrary with her. I don't suppose she's wholly to blame for it. Folks differ constitutionally. Some are always looking on the bright side of things, and others can never see but one side, and that's the dark one."

"You've hit it, uncle," said Jack, laughing. "Aunt Rachel always looks as if she was attending a funeral."

"So she is, my boy," said Abel, gravely, "and a sad funeral it is."

"I don't understand you, uncle."

"The funeral of her affections—that's what I mean. Perhaps you mayn't know that Rachel was, in early life, engaged to be married to a young man whom she ardently loved. She was a different woman then from what she is now. But her lover deserted her just before the wedding was to have come off, and she's never got over the disappointment. But that isn't what I was going to talk about. You haven't told me about your adopted sister."

"That's the very thing I've come to Philadelphia about," said Jack, soberly. "Ida has been carried off, and I've come in search of her."

"Been carried off? I didn't know such things ever happened in this country. What do you mean?"

Jack told the story of Mrs. Hardwick's arrival with a letter from Ida's mother, conveying the request that her child might, under the guidance of the messenger, be allowed to pay her a visit. To this and the subsequent details Abel Harding listened with earnest attention.

"So you have reason to think the child is in Philadelphia?" he said, musingly.

"Yes," said Jack; "Ida was seen in the cars, coming here, by a boy who knew her in New York."

"Ida?" repeated the baker. "Was that her name?"

"Yes; you knew her name, didn't you?"

"I dare say I have known it, but I have heard so little of your family lately that I had forgotten it. It is rather a singular circumstance."

"What is a singular circumstance?"

"I will tell you, Jack. It may not amount to anything, however. A few days since a little girl came into my shop to buy a small amount of bread. I was at once favorably impressed with her appearance. She was neatly dressed, and had a very honest face. Having made the purchase she handed me in payment a new dollar bill. 'I'll keep that for my little girl,' thought I at once. Accordingly, when I went home at night, I just took the dollar out of, the till and gave it to her. Of course, she was delighted with it, and, like a child, wanted to spend it at once. So her mother agreed to go out with her the next day. Well, they selected some knick-knack or other, but when they came to pay for it the dollar proved counterfeit."

"Counterfeit?"

"Yes; bad. Issued by a gang of counterfeiters. When they told me of this, I said to myself, 'Can it be that this little girl knew what she was about when she offered me that?' I couldn't think it possible, but decided to wait till she came again."

"Did she come again?"

"Yes; only day before yesterday. As I expected, she offered me in payment another dollar just like the other. Before letting her know that I had discovered the imposition I asked her one or two questions with the idea of finding out as much as possible about her. When I told her the bill was a bad one, she seemed very much surprised. It might have been all acting, but I didn't think so then. I even felt pity for her, and let her go on condition that she would bring me back a good dollar in place of the bad one the next day. I suppose I was a fool for doing so, but she looked so pretty and innocent that I couldn't make up my mind to speak or act harshly to her. But I am afraid that I was deceived, and that she was an artful character after all."

"Then she didn't come back with the good money?"

"No; I haven't seen her since."

"What name did she give you?"

"Haven't I told you? It was the name that made me think of telling you. She called herself Ida Hardwick."

"Ida Hardwick?" repeated Jack.

"Yes, Ida Hardwick. But that hasn't anything to do with your Ida, has it?"

"Hasn't it, though?" said Jack. "Why, Mrs. Hardwick was the woman who carried her away."

"Mrs. Hardwick—her mother?"

"No; not her mother. She said she was the woman who took care of Ida before she was brought to us."

"Then you think this Ida Hardwick may be your missing sister?"

"That's what I don't know yet," said Jack. "If you would only describe her, Uncle Abel, I could tell better."

"Well," said the baker, thoughtfully, "I should say this little girl was seven or eight years old."

"Yes," said Jack, nodding; "what color were her eyes?"

"Blue."

"So are Ida's."

"A small mouth, with a very sweet expression, yet with something firm and decided about it."

"Yes."

"And I believe her dress was a light one, with a blue ribbon round the waist."

"Did she wear anything around her neck?"

"A brown scarf, if I remember rightly."

"That is the way Ida was dressed when she went away with Mrs. Hardwick. I am sure it must be she. But how strange that she should come into your shop!"

"Perhaps," suggested his uncle, "this woman, representing herself as Ida's nurse, was her mother."

"No; it can't be," said Jack, vehemently. "What, that ugly, disagreeable woman, Ida's mother? I won't believe it. I should just as soon expect to see strawberries growing on a thorn bush."

"You know I have not seen Mrs. Hardwick."

"No great loss," said Jack. "You wouldn't care much about seeing her again. She is a tall, gaunt, disagreeable woman; while Ida is fair and sweet-looking. Ida's mother, whoever she is, I am sure, is a lady in appearance and manners, and Mrs. Hardwick is neither. Aunt Rachel was right for once."

"What did Rachel say?"

"She said the nurse was an impostor, and declared it was only a plot to get possession of Ida; but then, that was to be expected of Aunt Rachel."

"Still it seems difficult to imagine any satisfactory motive on the part of the woman, supposing her not to be Ida's mother."

"Mother or not," returned Jack, "she's got possession of Ida; and, from all that you say, she is not the best person to bring her up. I am determined to rescue Ida from this she-dragon. Will you help me, uncle?"

"You may count upon me, Jack, for all I can do."

"Then," said Jack, with energy, "we shall succeed. I feel sure of it. 'Where there's a will there's a way.'"

"I wish you success, Jack; but if the people who have got Ida are counterfeiters, they are desperate characters, and you must proceed cautiously."

"I ain't afraid of them. I'm on the warpath now, Uncle Abel, and they'd better look out for me."



CHAPTER XXIV

JACK'S DISCOVERY

The first thing to be done by Jack was, of course, in some way to obtain a clew to the whereabouts of Peg, or Mrs. Hardwick, to use the name by which he knew her. No mode of proceeding likely to secure this result occurred to him, beyond the very obvious one of keeping in the street as much as possible, in the hope that chance might bring him face to face with the object of his pursuit.

Following out this plan, Jack became a daily promenader in Chestnut, Walnut and other leading thoroughfares. Jack became himself an object of attention, on account of what appeared to be his singular behavior. It was observed that he had no glances to spare for young ladies, but persistently stared at the faces of all middle-aged women—a circumstance naturally calculated to attract remark in the case of a well-made lad like Jack.

"I am afraid," said the baker, "it will be as hard as looking for a needle in a haystack, to find the one you seek among so many faces."

"There's nothing like trying," said Jack, courageously. "I'm not going to give up yet a while. I'd know Ida or Mrs. Hardwick anywhere."

"You ought to write home, Jack. They will be getting anxious about you."

"I'm going to write this morning—I put it off, because I hoped to have some news to write."

He sat down and wrote the following note:

"DEAR PARENTS: I arrived in Philadelphia right side up with care, and am stopping at Uncle Abel's. He received me very kindly. I have got track of Ida, though I have not found her yet. I have learned as much as this: that this Mrs. Hardwick—who is a double-distilled she-rascal—probably has Ida in her clutches, and has sent her on two occasions to my uncle's. I am spending most of my time in the streets, keeping a good lookout for her. If I do meet her, see if I don't get Ida away from her. But it may take some time. Don't get discouraged, therefore, but wait patiently. Whenever anything new turns up you will receive a line from your dutiful son,