the first period of
her illness, Ida had persisted in remaining in the sick-room, rarely
speaking, never showing outwardly any signs of terror or grief, except
when she was removed from it; and then bursting into hysterical passions
of weeping, which no expostulations, no arguments, no commands--nothing,
in short, but bringing her back to the bedside--ever availed to calm.
Her mother had been her playfellow, her companion her dearest and most
familiar friend; and there seemed something in the remembrance of this
which, instead of overwhelming the child with despair, strengthened her
to watch faithfully and bravely by her dying parent to the very last.

When the parting moment was over, and when Mr. Welwyn, unable to bear
the shock of being present in the house of death at the time of his
wife's funeral, left home and went to stay with one of his relations in
a distant part of England, Ida, whom it had been his wish to take away
with him, petitioned earnestly to be left behind. "I promised mamma
before she died that I would be as good to my little sister Rosamond as
she had been to me," said the child, simply; "and she told me in return
that I might wait here and see her laid in her grave." There happened
to be an aunt of Mrs. Welwyn, and an old servant of the family, in the
house at this time, who understood Ida much better than her father did,
and they persuaded him not to take her away. I have heard my mother say
that the effect of the child's appearance at the funeral on her, and
on all who went to see it, was something that she could never think of
without the tears coming into her eyes, and could never forget to the
last day of her life.

It must have been very shortly after this period that I saw Ida for the
first time.

I remember accompanying my mother on a visit to the old house we have
just left, in the summer, when I was at home for the holidays. It was
a lovely, sunshiny morning. There was nobody indoors, and we walked out
into the garden. As we approached that lawn yonder, on the other side
of the shrubbery, I saw, first, a young woman in mourning (apparently
a servant) sitting reading; then a little girl, dressed all in black,
moving toward us slowly over the bright turf, and holding up before her
a baby, whom she was trying to teach to walk. She looked, to my ideas,
so very young to be engaged in such an occupation as this, and her
gloomy black frock appeared to be such an unnaturally grave garment for