-yes, it is Jack and Ida, too!"

The strange fulfillment of her own ironical suggestion struck even Aunt
Rachel. She, too, hastened to the window, and saw a handsome carriage
drawn, not by four horses, but by two, standing before the door.

Jack had already jumped out, and was now assisting Ida to alight. No
sooner was Ida on firm ground than she ran into the house, and was at
once clasped in the arms of her adopted mother.

"Oh, mother," she exclaimed, "how glad I am to see you once more!"

"Haven't you a kiss for me, too, Ida?" said the cooper, his face radiant
with joy. "You don't know how much we've missed you."

"And I am so glad to see you all, and Aunt Rachel too!"

To her astonishment, Aunt Rachel, for the first time in her remembrance,
kissed her. There was nothing wanting to her welcome home.

But the observant eyes of the spinster detected what had escaped the
cooper and his wife, in their joy at Ida's return.

"Where did you get this handsome dress, Ida?" she asked.

Then, for the first time, the cooper's family noticed that Ida was more
elegantly dressed than when she went away. She looked like a young
princess.

"That Mrs. Hardwick didn't give you this gown, I'll be bound!" said Aunt
Rachel.

"Oh, I've so much to tell you," said Ida, breathlessly. "I've found my
mother--my other mother!"

A pang struck to the honest hearts of Timothy Harding and his wife. Ida
must leave them. After all the happy years which they had watched over
and cared for her, she must leave them at length.

While they were silent in view of their threatened loss, an elegantly
dressed lady appeared on the threshold. Smiling, radiant with happiness,
Mrs. Clifton seemed, to the cooper's family, almost a being from another
sphere.

"Mother," said Ida, taking the hand of the stranger, and leading her up
to Mrs. Harding, "this is my other mother, who has always taken such
good care of me, and loved me so well."

"Mrs. Harding," said Mrs, Clifton, her voice full of feeling, "how can I
ever thank you for your kindness to my child?"

"My child!"

It was hard for Mrs. Harding to hear another speak of Ida this way.

"I have tried to do my duty by her," she said, simply. "I love her as if
she were my own."

"Yes," said the cooper, clearing his throat, and speaking a little
huskily, "we love her so much that we almost forgot that she wasn't
ours. We have had her since she was a baby, and it won't be easy at
first to give he