“And what are the wishing-thoughts about?” inquired the mother, in a matter-of-fact way.

“I often wish I was grown up.  I feel tired of being a child; I want to be a woman.  Then I should know so much more, and I should be able to understand all the things you tell me I can’t now.  I don’t care for playing at games and going to school.”

“You’ll be a woman soon enough, Ida,” said Lotty, with a quiet sadness unusual in her.  “But go on; what else?”

“And then I often wish I was a boy.  It must be so much nicer to be a boy.  They’re stronger than girls, and they know more.  Don’t you wish I was a boy, mother?”

“Yes, I do, I often do!” exclaimed Lotty.  “Boys aren’t such a trouble, and they can go out and shift for themselves.”

“Oh, but I won’t be a trouble to you,” exclaimed Ida.  “When I’m old enough to leave school—­”

She interrupted herself, for the moment she had actually forgotten the misfortune which had come upon her.  But her mother did not observe the falling of her countenance, nor yet the incomplete sentence.

“Ida, have I been a bad mother to you?” Lotty sobbed out presently.  “If I was to die, would you be sorry?”

“Mother!”

“I’ve done my best, indeed I’ve done my best for yon!  How many mothers like me would have brought you up as I’ve done?  How many, I’d like to know?  And some day you’ll hate me; oh yes, you will!  Some day you’ll wish to forget all about me, and you’ll never come to see where I’m buried, and you’ll get rid of everything that could remind you of me.  How I wish I’d never been born!”

Ida had often to comfort her mother in the latter’s fits of low spirits, but had never heard such sad words as these before.  The poor child could say nothing in reply; the terrible thought that she herself was bringing new woes to be endured almost broke her heart She clung about her mother’s neck and wept passionately.

Lotty shortly after took a draught from a bottle which the child reached out of a drawer for her, and lay pretty still till drowsiness came on.  Ida undressed and crept to her side.  They had a troubled night, and, when the daylight came again, Lotty was no better.  Ida rose in anguish of spirit, torturing herself to find a way of telling what must be told.  Yet she had another respite; her mother said that, as it was Saturday, she might as well stay away from school and be a little nurse.  And the dull day wore through; the confession being still postponed.

But by the last post at night came Miss Rutherford’s letter.  Ida was still sitting up, and Lotty had fallen into a doze, when the landlady brought the letter upstairs.  The child took it in, answered an inquiry about her mother in a whisper, and returned to the bedside.  She knew the handwriting on the envelope.  The dreaded moment had come.

She must have stood more than a quarter of an hour, motionless, gazing on her mother’s face, conscious of nothing but an agonised expectation of seeing the sleeper’s eyes open.  They did open at length, and quickly saw the letter.