“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.”

CHAPTER VIII.

A strange visitor.

It was about eleven o’clock in the forenoon, Mrs. Crump was in the kitchen, busy in preparations for dinner, when a loud knock was heard at the door.

“Who can it be?” ejaculated Mrs. Crump.  “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 Aunt 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 marked, and not altogether pleasant features.

“Are you the lady of the house?” inquired the visitor.

“There ain’t any ladies in this house,” said Rachel.  “You’ve come to the wrong place.  We have to work for a living here.”

“The woman of the house, then.  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 lead me to your mistress, then?”

“I have none.”

The visitor’s eyes flashed, as if her temper was easily roused.

“I want to see Mrs. Crump,” she said, impatiently.  Will you call her, or shall I go and announce myself?”

“Some folks are mighty impatient,” muttered Rachel.  “Stay here, and I’ll call her to the door.”

In a short time Mrs. Crump presented herself.

“Won’t you come in?” she asked, pleasantly.

“I don’t care if I do,” was the reply.  “I wish to speak to you on important business.”

Mrs. Crump, whose interest was excited, led the way into the sitting-room.

“You have in your family,” said the stranger, after seating herself, “a girl named Ida.”

Mrs. Crump looked up suddenly and anxiously.  Could it be that the secret of Ida’s birth was to be revealed at last!

“Yes,” she said.

“Who is not your child.”

“But whom I love as such; whom I have always taught to look upon me as a mother.”

“I presume so.  It is of her that I wish to speak to you.”

“Do you know anything of her parentage?” inquired Mrs. Crump, eagerly.

“I was her nurse,” said the other, quietly.

Mrs. Crump examined, anxiously, the hard features of the woman.  It was a relief at least to know, though she could hardly have believed, that there was no tie of blood between her and Ida.

“Who were her parents?”

“I am not permitted to tell,” was the reply.

Mrs. Crump looked disappointed.