"Where are you going in such a hurry?" she demanded.
"Back to father and mother," answered Ida, bursting into tears. "Oh, why
did you bring me here?"

"I'll tell you why," answered Dick, jocularly. "You see, Ida, we ain't
got any little girl to love us, and so we got you."

"But I don't love you, and I never shall," said Ida, indignantly.

"Now don't you go to saying that," said Dick. "You'll break my heart,
you naughty girl, and then Peg will be a widow."

To give due effect to this pathetic speech, Dick drew out a tattered red
handkerchief, and made a great demonstration of wiping his eyes.

The whole scene was so ludicrous that Ida, despite her fears and
disgust, could not help laughing hysterically. She recovered herself
instantly, and said imploringly: "Oh, do let me go, and father will pay
you."

"You really think he would?" said Dick, in a tantalizing tone.

"Oh, yes; and you'll tell her to take me back, won't you?"

"No, he won't tell me any such thing," said Peg, gruffly; "so you may as
well give up all thoughts of that first as last. You're going to stay
here; so take off that bonnet of yours, and say no more about it."

Ida made no motion toward obeying this mandate.

"Then I'll do it for you," said Peg.

She roughly untied the bonnet--Ida struggling vainly in opposition--and
taking this, with the shawl, carried them to a closet, in which she
placed them, and then, locking the door, deliberately put the key in her
pocket.

"There," said she, grimly, "I guess you're safe for the present."

"Ain't you ever going to carry me back?"

"Some years hence I may possibly," answered the woman, coolly. "We want
you here for the present. Besides, you're not sure that they want you
back."

"Not want me back again?"

"That's what I said. How do you know but your father and mother sent you
off on purpose? They've been troubled with you long enough, and now
they've bound you apprentice to me till you're eighteen."

"It's a lie!" said Ida, firmly. "They didn't send me off, and you're a
wicked woman to tell me so."

"Hoity-toity!" said the woman. "Is that the way you dare to speak to me?
Have you anything more to say before I whip you?"

"Yes," answered Ida, goaded to desperation. "I shall complain of you to
the police, just as soon as I get a chance, and they will put you in
jail and send me home. That is what I will do."

Mrs. Hardwick was incensed, and somewhat startled at these defiant
words. It was clear that Ida was not going to be a meek, submissive
child, whom they might ill-treat without apprehension. She was decidedly
dangerous, and her insubordination must be nipped in the bud. She seized
Ida roughly by the arm, and striding with her to the closet already
spoken of, unlocked it, and, rudely pushing her in, locked the door
after her.

"Stay there till you know how to behave," she said.

"How did you manage to come it over her family?" inquired Dick.

His wife gave substantially the account with which the reader is already
familiar.

"Pretty well done, old woman!" exclaimed Dick, approvingly. "I always
said you was a deep un. I always says, if Peg can't find out how a thing
is to be done, then it can't be done, nohow."

"How about the counterfeit coin?" she asked.

"We're to be supplied with all we can put off, and we are to have half
for our trouble."

"That is good. When the girl, Ida, gets a little tamed down, we'll give
her something to do."

"Is it safe? Won't she betray us?"

"We'll manage that, or at least I will. I'll work on her fears, so she
won't any more dare to say a word about us than to cut her own head
off."

"All right, Peg. I can trust you to do what's right."

Ida sank down on the floor of the closet into which she had been thrust.
Utter darkness was around her, and a darkness as black seemed to hang
over all her prospects of future happiness. She had been snatched in a
moment from parents, or those whom she regarded as such, and from a
comfortable and happy, though humble home, to this dismal place. In
place of the kindness and indulgence to which she had been accustomed,
she was now treated with harshness and cruelty.




CHAPTER XVII

SUSPENSE


"It doesn't, somehow, seem natural," said the cooper, as he took his
seat at the tea table, "to sit down without Ida. It seems as if half the
family were gone."

"Just what I've said to myself twenty times to-day," remarked his wife.
"Nobody can tell how much a child is to them till they lose it."

"Not lose it," corrected Jack.

"I didn't mean to say that."

"When you used that word, mother, it made me feel just as if Ida wasn't
coming back."

"I don't know why it is," said Mrs. Harding, thoughtfully, "but I've had
that same feeling several times today. I've felt just as if something or
other would happen to prevent Ida's coming back."

"That is only because she's never been away before," said the cooper,
cheerfully. "It isn't best to borrow trouble, Martha; we shall have
enough of it without."

"You never said a truer word, brother," said Rachel, mournfully. "Man is
born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. This world is a vale of tears,
and a home of misery. Folks may try and try to be happy, but that isn't
what they're sent here for."

"You never tried very hard, Aunt Rachel," said Jack.

"It's my fate to be misjudged," said his aunt, with the air of a martyr.

"I don't agree with you in your ideas about life, Rachel," said her
brother. "Just as there are more pleasant than stormy days, so I believe
there is much more of brightness than shadow in this life of ours, if we
would only see it."

"I can't see it," said Rachel.

"It seems to me, Rachel, you take more pains to look at the clouds than
the sun."

"Yes," chimed in Jack, "I've noticed whenever Aunt Rachel takes up the
newspaper, she always looks first at the deaths, and next at the fatal
accidents and steamboat explosions."

"If," retorted Rachel, with severe emphasis, "you should ever be on
board a steamboat when it exploded, you wouldn't find much to laugh at."

"Yes, I should," said Jack, "I should laugh--"

"What!" exclaimed Rachel, horrified.

"On the other side of my mouth," concluded Jack. "You didn't wait till
I'd finished the sentence."

"I don't think it proper to make light of such serious matters."

"Nor I Aunt Rachel," said Jack, drawing down the corners of his mouth.
"I am willing to confess that this is a serious matter. I should feel as
they say the cow did, that was thrown three hundred feet up into the
air."

"How's that?" inquired his mother.

"Rather discouraged," answered Jack.

All laughed except Aunt Rachel, who preserved the same severe composure,
and continued to eat the pie upon her plate with the air of one gulping
down medicine.

In the morning all felt more cheerful.

"Ida will be home to-night," said Mrs. Harding, brightly. "What an age
it seems since she went away! Who'd think it was only twenty-four
hours?"

"We shall know better how to appreciate her when we get her back," said
her husband.

"What time do you expect her home, mother? What did Mrs. Hardwick say?"

"Why," said Mrs. Harding, hesitating, "she didn't say as to the hour;
but I guess she'll be along in the course of the afternoon."

"If we only knew where she had gone, we could tell better when to expect
her."

"But as we don't know," said the cooper, "we must wait patiently till
she comes."

"I guess," said Mrs. Harding, with the impulse of a notable housewife,
"I'll make some apple turnovers for supper to-night. There's nothing Ida
likes so well."

"That's where Ida is right," said Jack, smacking his lips. "Apple
turnovers are splendid."

"They are very unwholesome," remarked Rachel.

"I shouldn't think so from the way you eat them, Aunt Rachel," retorted
Jack. "You ate four the last time we had them for supper."

"I didn't think you'd begrudge me the little I eat," said his aunt,
dolefully. "I didn't think you counted the mouthfuls I took."

"Come, Rachel, don't be so unreasonable," said her brother. "Nobody
begrudges you what you eat, even if you choose to eat twice as much as
you do. I dare say Jack ate more of the turnovers than you did."

"I ate six," said Jack, candidly.

Rachel, construing this into an apology, said no more.

"If it wasn't for you, Aunt Rachel, I should be in danger of getting too
jolly, perhaps, and spilling over. It always makes me sober to look at
you."

"It's lucky there's something to make you sober and stiddy," said his
aunt. "You are too frivolous."

Evening came, but it did not bring Ida. An indefinable sense of
apprehension oppressed the minds of all. Martha feared that Ida's
mother, finding her so attractive, could not resist the temptation of
keeping her.

"I suppose," she said, "that she has the best claim to her, but it would
be a terrible thing for us to part with her."

"Don't let us trouble ourselves about that," said Timothy. "It seems to
me very natural that her mother should keep her a little longer than she
intended. Think how long it is since she saw her. Besides, it is not too
late for her to return to-night."

At length there came a knock at the door.

"I guess that is Ida," said Mrs. Harding, joyfully.

Jack seized a candle, and hastening to the door, threw it open. But
there was no Ida there. In her place stood Charlie Fitts, the boy who
had met Ida in the cars.

"How are you, Charlie?" said Jack, trying not to look disappointed.
"Come in and tell us all the news."

"Well," said Charlie, "I don't know of any. I suppose Ida has got home?"

"No," answered Jack; "we expected her to-night, but she hasn't come
yet."

"She told me she expected to come back to-day."

"What! have you seen her?" exclaimed all, in chorus.

"Yes; I saw her yesterday noon."

"Where?"

"Why, in the cars," answered Charlie.

"What cars?" asked the cooper.

"Why, the Philadelphia cars. Of course you knew it was there she was
going?"

"Philadelphia!" exclaimed all, in surprise.

"Yes, the cars were almost there when I saw her. Who was that with her?"

"Mrs. Hardwick, her old nurse."

"I didn't like her looks."

"That's where we paddle in the same canoe," said Jack.

"She didn't seem to want me to speak to Ida," continued Charlie, "but
hurried her off as quick as possible."

"There were reasons for that," said the cooper. "She wanted to keep her
destination secret."

"I don't know what it was," said the boy, "but I don't like the woman's
looks."




CHAPTER XVIII

HOW IDA FARED


We left Ida confined in a dark closet, with Peg standing guard over her.

After an hour she was released.

"Well," said the nurse, grimly, "how do you feel now?"

"I want to go home," sobbed the child.

"You are at home," said the woman.

"Shall I never see father, and mother, and Jack again?"

"That depends on how you behave yourself."

"Oh, if you will only let me go," pleaded Ida, gathering hope from this
remark, "I'll do anything you say."

"Do you mean this, or do you only say it for the sake of getting away?"

"I mean just what I say. Dear, good Mrs. Hardwick, tell me what to do,
and I will obey you cheerfully."

"Very well," said Peg, "only you needn't try to come it over me by
calling me dear, good Mrs. Hardwick. In the first place, you don't care
a cent about me; in the second place, I am not good; and finally, my
name isn't Mrs. Hardwick, except in New York."

"What is it, then?" asked Ida.

"It's just Peg, no more and no less. You may call me Aunt Peg."

"I would rather call you Mrs. Hardwick."

"Then you'll have a good many years to call me so. You'd better do as I
tell you, if you want any favors. Now what do you say?"

"Yes, Aunt Peg," said Ida, with a strong effort to conceal her
repugnance.

"That's well. Now you're not to tell anybody that you came from New
York. That is very important; and you're to pay your board by doing
whatever I tell you."

"If it isn't wicked."

"Do you suppose I would ask you to do anything wicked?" demanded Peg,
frowning.

"You said you wasn't good," mildly suggested Ida.

"I'm good enough to take care of you. Well, what do you say to that?
Answer me?"

"Yes."

"There's another thing. You ain't to try to run away."

Ida hung down her head.

"Ha!" exclaimed Peg. "So you've been thinking of it, have you?"

"Yes," answered Ida, boldly, after a moment's hesitation. "I did think I
should if I got a good chance."

"Humph!" said the woman, "I see we must understand one another. Unless
you promise this, back you go into the dark closet, and I shall keep you
there."

Ida shuddered at this fearful threat--terrible to a child of but eight
years.

"Do you promise?"

"Yes," said Ida, faintly.

"For fear you might be tempted to break your promise, I have something
to show you."

Mrs. Hardwick went to the closet, and took down a large pistol.

"There," she said, "do you see that?"

"Yes, Aunt Peg."

"Do you know what it is for?"

"To shoot people with," answered the child.

"Yes," said the nurse; "I see you understand. Well, now, do you know
what I would do if you should tell anybody where you came from, or
attempt to run away? Can you guess, now?"

"Would you shoot me?" asked Ida, terror-stricken.

"Yes, I would," said Peg, with fierce emphasis. "That's just what I'd
do. And what's more even if you got away, and got back to your family in
New York, I would follow you, and shoot you dead in the street."

"You wouldn't be so wicked!" exclaimed Ida.

"Wouldn't I, though?" repeated Peg, significantly. "If you don't believe
I would, just try it. Do you think you would like to try it?" she asked,
fiercely.

"No," answered Ida, with a shudder.

"Well, that's the most sensible thing you've said yet. Now that you are
a little more reasonable, I'll tell you what I am going to do with you."

Ida looked eagerly up into her face.

"I am going to keep you with me for a year. I want the services of a
little girl for that time. If you serve me faithfully, I will then send
you back to New York."

"Will you?" asked Ida, hopefully.

"Yes, but you must mind and do what I tell you."

"Oh, yes," said Ida, joyfully.

This was so much better than she had been led to fear, that the prospect
of returning home at all, even though she had to wait a year, encouraged
her.

"What do you want me to do?" she asked.

"You may take the broom and sweep the room."

"Yes, Aunt Peg."

"And then you may wash the dishes."

"Yes, Aunt Peg."

"And after that, I will find something else for you to do."

Mrs. Hardwick threw herself into a rocking-chair, and watched with grim
satisfaction the little handmaiden, as she moved quickly about.

"I took the right course with her," she said to herself. "She won't any
more dare to run away than to chop her hands off. She thinks I'll shoot
her."

And the unprincipled woman chuckled to herself.

Ida heard her indistinctly, and asked, timidly:

"Did you speak, Aunt Peg?"

"No, I didn't; just attend to your work and don't mind me. Did your
mother make you work?"

"No; I went to school."

"Time you learned. I'll make a smart woman of you."

The next morning Ida was asked if she would like to go out into the
street.

"I am going to let you do a little shopping. There are various things we
want. Go and get your hat."

"It's in the closet," said Ida.

"Oh, yes, I put it there. That was before I could trust you."

She went to the closet and returned with the child's hat and shawl. As
soon as the two were ready they emerged into the street.

"This is a little better than being shut up in the closet, isn't it?"
asked her companion.

"Oh, yes, ever so much."

"You see you'll have a very good time of it, if you do as I bid you. I
don't want to do you any harm."

So they walked along together until Peg, suddenly pausing, laid her
hands on Ida's arm, and pointing to a shop near by, said to her: "Do you
see that shop?"

"Yes," said Ida.

"I want you to go in and ask for a couple of rolls. They come to three
cents apiece. Here's some money to pay for them. It is a new dollar. You
will give this to the man that stands behind the counter, and he will
give you back ninety-four cents. Do you understand?"

"Yes," said Ida, nodding her head. "I think I do."

"And if the man asks if you have anything smaller, you will say no."

"Yes, Aunt Peg."

"I will stay just outside. I want you to go in alone, so you will learn
to manage without me."

Ida entered the shop. The baker, a pleasant-looking man, stood behind
the counter.

"Well, my dear, what is it?" he asked.

"I should like a couple of rolls."

"For your mother, I suppose?" said the baker.

"No," answered Ida, "for the woman I board with."

"Ha! a dollar bill, and a new one, too," said the baker, as Ida tendered
it in payment. "I shall have to save that for my little girl."

Ida left the shop with the two rolls and the silver change.

"Did he say anything about the money?" asked Peg.

"He said he should save it for his little girl."

"Good!" said the woman. "You've done well."




CHAPTER XIX

BAD MONEY


The baker introduced in the foregoing chapter was named Harding.
Singularly, Abel Harding was a brother of Timothy Harding, the cooper.

In many respects he resembled his brother. He was an excellent man,
exemplary in all the relations of life, and had a good heart. He was in
very comfortable circumstances, having accumulated a little property by
diligent attention to his business. Like his brother, Abel Harding had
married, and had one child. She had received the name of Ellen.

When the baker closed his shop for the night, he did not forget the new
dollar, which he had received, or the disposal he told Ida he would make
of it.

Ellen ran to meet her father as he entered the house.

"What do you think I have brought you, Ellen?" he said, with a smile.

"Do tell me quick," said the child, eagerly.

"What if I should tell you it was a new dollar?"

"Oh, papa, thank you!" and Ellen ran to show it to her mother.

"Yes," said the baker, "I received it from a little girl about the size
of Ellen, and I suppose it was that that gave me the idea of bringing it
home to her."

This was all that passed concerning Ida at that time. The thought of her
would have passed from the baker's mind, if it had not been recalled by
circumstances.

Ellen, like most girls of her age, when in possession of money, could
not be easy until she had spent it. Her mother advised her to deposit it
in some savings bank; but Ellen preferred present gratification.

Accordingly, one afternoon, when walking out with her mother, she
persuaded her to go into a toy shop, and price a doll which she saw in
the window. The price was seventy-five cents. Ellen concluded to buy it,
and her mother tendered the dollar in payment.

The shopman took it in his hand, glanced at it carelessly at first, then
scrutinized it with increased attention.

"What is the matter?" inquired Mrs. Harding. "It is good, isn't it?"

"That is what I am doubtful of," was the reply.

"It is new."

"And that is against it. If it were old, it would be more likely to be
genuine."