eated Peg, furiously. "Didn't you promise to do whatever
I told you?"

"Except what was wicked," interposed Ida.

"And what business have you to decide what is wicked? Come home with
me."

Peg seized the child's hand, and walked on in sullen silence,
occasionally turning to scowl upon Ida, who had been strong enough, in
her determination to do right, to resist successfully the will of the
woman whom she had so much reason to dread.

Arrived at home, Peg walked Ida into the room by the shoulder. Dick was
lounging in a chair.

"Hillo!" said he, lazily, observing his wife's frowning face. "What's
the gal been doin', hey?"

"What's she been doing?" repeated Peg. "I should like to know what she
hasn't been doing. She's refused to go in and buy gingerbread of the
baker."

"Look here, little gal," said Dick, in a moralizing vein, "isn't this
rayther undootiful conduct on your part? Ain't it a piece of
ingratitude, when Peg and I go to the trouble of earning the money to
pay for gingerbread for you to eat, that you ain't even willin' to go in
and buy it?"

"I would just as lieve 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. "It's
your dooty to do just 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 in grave reproval.
"Little gal, I'm ashamed of you. Put her in the closet, Peg."

"Come along," said Peg, harshly. "I'll show you how I deal with those
that don't obey me."

So Ida was incarcerated once more in the dark closet. Yet in the midst
of her desolation, child as she was, she was sustained and comforted by
the thought that she was suffering for doing right.

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

"If I were her mother," said the cooper's wife, "and had been parted
from her for 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 Rachel, shaking her head, solemnly. "It's
all a delusion. I don't believe she's got a mother at all. That Mrs.
Hardwick is an impostor. I know 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."

The next day passed, and still no tidin