“I would just as lieves 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; “jest do 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.  “Put her in the closet.”

So Ida was incarcerated once more in the dark closet.  Yet, in the midst of her desolation, there was a feeling of pleasure in thinking that she was suffering for doing right.

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

“If I were her mother,” said Mrs. Crump, “and had been parted from her 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 Aunt Rachel, shaking her head.  “It’s all a delusion.  I don’t believe she’s got a mother at all.  That Mrs. Hardwick is an imposter.  I knew 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.”

“I do,” said Jack, confidently.

“There’s many a hope that’s doomed to disappointment,” said Aunt Rachel.

“So there is,” said Jack.  “I was hoping mother would have apple-pudding for dinner to-day, but she didn’t.”

The next day passed, and still no tidings of Ida.  There was a cloud of anxiety, even upon Mr. Crump’s usually placid face, and he was more silent than usual at the evening meal.

At night, after Rachel and Jack had both retired, he said, anxiously, “What do you think is the cause of Ida’s prolonged absence, Mary?”

“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Crump, seriously.  “It seems to me, if her mother wanted te keep her longer than the time she at first proposed, it would be no more than right that she should write us a line.  She must know that we would feel anxious.”

“Perhaps she is so taken up with Ida that she can think of nothing 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,” said the cooper, sadly.

“Oh, husband, don’t think of such a thing,” said his wife, distressed.

“We must contemplate it as a possibility,” returned Timothy, gravely, “though not, I hope, as a probability.  Ida’s mother has an undoubted right to her; a better right than any we can urge.”

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

“Not so, Mary,” said the cooper, seriously.  “We ought to be grateful for God’s blessings, even if he suffers us to possess them but a short time.  And Ida has been a blessing to us, I am sure.  How many hours have been made happy by her childish prattle! how our hearts have been filled with cheerful happiness and affection when we have gazed upon her!  That can’t be taken from us, even if she is, Mary.  There’s some lines I met with in the paper, to-night, that express just what I feel.  Let me find them.”