“Where is Ida?” asked Jack, anxiously.

“She is safe,” said Peg, sententiously.

“You won’t tell me where she is?”

“No.  Why should I?  I am indebted to you, I suppose, for this arrest.  She shall be kept out of your way as long as it is in my power to do so.”

Jack’s countenance fell.

“At least you will tell me whether she is well?”

“I shall answer no questions whatever,” said Mrs. Hardwick.

“Then I will find her,” he said, gaining courage.  “She is somewhere in the city, and sooner or later I shall find her.”

Peg was not one to betray her feelings, but this arrest was a great disappointment to her.  Apart from the consequences which might result from it, it would prevent her meeting with John Somerville, and obtaining from him the thousand dollars of which she had regarded herself certain.  Yet even from her prison-cell she might hold over him in terrorem the threat of making known to Ida’s mother the secret of her child’s existence.  All was not lost.  She walked quietly to the carriage in waiting, while her companions, in an ecstasy of terror, seemed to have lost the power of locomotion, and had to be supported on either side.

CHAPTER XXIV.

“THE FLOWER-GIRL.”

“BY gracious, if that isn’t Ida!” exclaimed Jack, in profound surprise.

He had been sauntering along Chestnut Street, listlessly, troubled by the thought that though he had given Mrs. Hardwick into custody, he was apparently no nearer the discovery of his foster-sister than before.  What steps should he take to find her?  He could not decide.  In his perplexity he came suddenly upon the print of the “Flower-Girl.”

“Yes,” said he, “that is Ida, plain enough.  Perhaps they will know in the store where she is to be found.”

He at once entered the store.

“Can you tell me anything about the girl that picture was taken for?” he asked, abruptly of the nearest clerk.

The clerk smiled.

“It is a fancy picture,” he said.  “I think it would take you a long time to find the original.”

“It has taken a long time,” said Jack.  “But you are mistaken.  It is the picture of my sister.”

“Of your sister!” repeated the clerk, with surprise, half incredulous.

There was some reason for his incredulity.  Jack was a stout, good-looking boy, with a pleasant face; but Ida’s beauty was of a delicate, refined type, which argued gentle birth,—­her skin of a brilliant whiteness, dashed by a tinge of rose,—­exhibiting a physical perfection, which it requires several generations of refined habits and exemptions from the coarser burdens of life to produce.  The perfection of human development is not wholly a matter of chance, but is dependent, in no small degree, upon outward conditions.  We frequently see families who have sprung from poverty to wealth exhibiting, in the younger branches, marked improvement in this respect.