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; I’m sure he will.”

“You really think he would?” said Dick.

“Oh, yes; and you’ll tell her to carry me back, won’t you?”

“No, he won’t tell me any such thing,” said Peg, gruffly; “and if he did, I wouldn’t do it; so you might 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 towards 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, “I guess you’re safe for the present.”

“Ain’t you ever going to carry me back?” asked Ida, wishing to know the worst.

“Some years hence,” said the woman, coolly.  “We want you here for the present.  Besides, you’re not sure that they want to see you back again.”

“Not glad to see me?”

“No; 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 keep me here.”

“Hoity-toity!” said the woman, pausing and looking menacingly at the child.  “Have you anything more to say before I whip you?”

“Yes,” said Ida, goaded to desperation; “I shall complain of you to the police, and they will put you in jail, and send me home.  That is what I will do.”

The nurse seized Ida 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.

“She’s a spunky ’un,” remarked Dick, taking the pipe from his mouth.

“Yes,” said the woman, “she makes more fuss than I thought she would.”

“How did you manage to come it over her family?” asked Dick.

His wife, gave substantially, the same 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 say if Peg can’t find out a way to do a thing it can’t be done, no how.”

“How about the counterfeit coin?” asked his wife, abruptly.

“They’re to supply us with all we can get off, and we are to have one half of all we succeed in passing.”

“That is good,” said the woman, thoughtfully.  “When this girl Ida gets a little tamed down, we’ll give her some business to do.”

“Won’t she betray us if she gets caught?”