“It’s from Miss Rutherford, mother,” said Ida, her own voice sounding very strange to herself.

“Oh, is it?” said Lotty, in the hoarse whisper which was all she could command “I suppose she wants to know why you didn’t go.  Read it to me.”

Ida read, and, in reading, suffered as she never did again throughout her life.

“Dear Mrs. Starr,—­I am very sorry to have to say that Ida must not return to school.  I had better leave the explanation to herself; she is truthful, and will tell you what has compelled me to take this step.  I grieve to lose her, but have really no choice.—­I am, yours truly,

H. Rutherford.”

No tears rose; her voice was as firm as though she had been reading in class; but she was pale and cold as death.

Lotty rose in bed and stared wildly.

“What have you done, child?—­what ever have you done?  Is—­is it anything—­about me”

“I hit Harriet Smales with a slate, and covered her all over with blood, and I thought I’d killed her.”

She could not meet her mother’s eyes; stood with head hung down, and her hands clasped behind her.

“What made you do it?” asked Lotty in amazement.

“I couldn’t help it, mother; she—­she said you were a bad woman.”

Ida had raised her eyes with a look of love and proud confidence.  Lotty shrank before her, clutched convulsively at the bed-clothes, then half raised herself and dashed her head with fearful violence against the wall by which the bed stood.  She fell back, half stunned, and lay on the pillows, whilst the child, with outstretched hands, gazed horror-struck.  But in a moment Ida had her arms around the distraught woman, pressing the dazed head against her breast.  Lotty began to utter incoherent self-reproaches, unintelligible to her little comforter; her voice had become the merest whisper; she seemed to have quite exhausted herself.  Just now there came a knock at the door, and Ida was relieved to see Mrs. Ledward, whose help she begged.  In a few minutes Lotty had come to herself again, and whispered that she wished to speak to the landlady alone.  The latter persuaded Ida to go downstairs for a while, and the child, whose tears had begun to flow, left the room, sobbing in anguish.

“Ain’t you better then?” asked the woman, with an apparent effort to speak in a sympathetic tone which did not come easily to her.

“I’m very bad,” whispered the other, drawing her breath as if in pain.

“Ay, you’ve got a bad cold, that’s what it is.  I’ll make you some gruel presently, and put some rum in it.  You don’t take care of yourself:  I told you how it ’ud be when you came in with those wringin’ things on, on Thursday night.”

“They’ve found out about me at the school,” gasped Lotty, with a despairing look, “and Ida’s got sent away.”

“She has?  Well, never mind, you can find another, I suppose.  I can’t see myself what she wants with so much schoolin’, but I suppose you know best about your own affairs.”