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Later in the day, Ida returned from school. She bounded into the room, as usual, but stopped short in some confusion, on seeing a stranger.
"Is this my own dear child, over whose infancy I watched so tenderly?" exclaimed the nurse, rising, her harsh features wreathed into a smile.
"It is Ida," said the cooper's wife.
Ida looked from one to the other in silent bewilderment.
"Ida," said Mrs. Harding, in a little embarrassment, "this is Mrs. Hardwick, who took care of you when you were an infant."
"But I thought you took care of me, mother," said Ida, in surprise.
"Very true," said Mrs. Harding, evasively; "but I was not able to have the care of you all the time. Didn't I ever mention Mrs. Hardwick to you?"
"No, mother."
"Although it is so long since I have seen her, I should have known her anywhere," said the nurse, applying a handkerchief to her eyes. "So pretty as she's grown up, too!"
Mrs. Harding glanced with pride at the beautiful child, who blushed at the compliment, a rare one, for her adopted mother, whatever she might think, did not approve of openly praising her appearance.
"Ida," said Mrs. Hardwick, "won't you come and kiss your old nurse?"
Ida looked at her hard face, which now wore a smile intended to express affection. Without knowing why, she felt an instinctive repugnance to this stranger, notwithstanding her words of endearment.
She advanced timidly, with a reluctance which she was not wholly able to conceal, and passively submitted to a caress from the nurse.
There was a look in the eyes of the nurse, carefully guarded, yet not wholly concealed, which showed that she was quite aware of Ida's feeling toward her, and resented it. But whether or not she was playing a part, she did not betray this feeling openly, but pressed the unwilling child more closely to her bosom.
Ida breathed a sigh of relief when she was released, and moved quietly away, wondering what it was that made the woman so disagreeable to her.
"Is my nurse a good woman?" she asked, thoughtfully, when alone with Mrs. Harding, who was setting the table for dinner.
"A good woman! What makes you ask that?" queried her adopted mother, in surprise.
"I don't know," said Ida.
"I don't know anything to indicate that she is otherwise," said Mrs. Harding. "And, by the way, Ida, she is going to take you on a little excursion to-morrow."
"She going to take me!" exclaimed Ida. "Why, where are we going?"
"On a little pleasure trip; and perhaps she may introduce you to a pleasant lady, who has already become interested in you, from what she has told her."
"What could she say of me?" inquired Ida. "She has not seen me since I was a baby."
"Why," answered the cooper's wife, a little puzzled, "she appears to have thought of you ever since, with a good deal of affection."
"Is it wicked," asked Ida, after a pause, "not to like those who like us?"
"What makes you ask?"
"Because, somehow or other, I don't like this Mrs. Hardwick, at all, for all she was my old nurse, and I don't believe I ever shall."
"Oh, yes, you will," said Mrs. Harding, "when you find she is exerting herself to give you pleasure."
"Am I going with her to-morrow morning?"
"Yes. She wanted you to go to-day, but your clothes were not in order."
"We shall come back at night, shan't we?"
"I presume so."
"I hope we shall," said Ida, decidedly, "and that she won't want me to go with her again."
"Perhaps you will feel differently when it is over, and you find you have enjoyed yourself better than you anticipated."
Mrs. Harding exerted herself to fit Ida up as neatly as possible, and when at length she was got ready, she thought with sudden fear: "Perhaps her mother will not be willing to part with her again."
When Ida was ready to start, there came upon all a little shadow of depression, as if the child were to be separated from them for a year, and not for a day only. Perhaps this was only natural, since even this latter term, however brief, was longer than they had been parted from her since, in her infancy, she had been left at their door.
The nurse expressly desired that none of the family should accompany her, as she declared it highly important that the whereabouts of Ida's mother should not be known.
"Of course," she added, "after Ida returns she can tell you what she pleases. Then it will be of no consequence, for her mother will be gone. She does not live in this neighborhood. She has only come here to see her child."
"Shall you bring her back to-night?" asked Mrs. Harding.
"I may keep her till to-morrow," said the nurse. "After seven years' absence her mother will think that short enough."
To this, Mrs. Harding agreed, though she felt that she should miss Ida, though absent but twenty-four hours.