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CHAPTER XIV. DOUBTS AND FEARS

“WELL, what kept you so long?” asked Peg, impatiently, as Ida rejoined her at the corner of the street, where she had been waiting for her. “And where’s your gingerbread?”

“He wouldn’t let me have it,” said Ida.

“And why not?”

“Because he said the money wasn’t good.”

“Stuff! it’s good enough,” said Peg, hastily. “Then we must go somewhere else.”

“But he said the dollar I gave him last week wasn’t good, and I promised to bring him another to-morrow, or he wouldn’t have let me go.”

“Well, where are you going to get your dollar to carry him?”

“Why, won’t you give it to me?” said Ida, hesitatingly.

“Catch me at such nonsense! But here we are at another shop. Go in and see whether you can do any better there. Here’s the money.”

“Why, it’s the same piece.”

“What if it is?”

“I don’t want to pass bad money.”

“Tut, what hurt will it do?”

“It is the same as stealing.”

“The man won’t lose anything. He’ll pass it off again.”

“Somebody’ll have to lose it by and by,” said Ida, whose truthful perceptions saw through the woman’s sophistry.

“So you’ve taken up preaching, have you?” said Peg, sneeringly. “Maybe you know better than I what is proper to do. It won’t do to be so mighty particular, and so you’ll find out if you live with me long.”

“Where did you take the dollar?” asked Ida, with a sudden thought; “and how is it that you have so many of them?”

“None of your business,” said her companion, roughly. “You shouldn’t pry into the affairs of other people.”

“Are you going to do as I told you?” she demanded, after a moment’s pause.

“I can’t,” said Ida, pale but resolute.

“You can’t,” repeated Peg, furiously. “Didn’t you promise to do whatever I told you?”

“Except what was wicked,” interrupted Ida.

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

Peg, walked in sullen silence, occasionally turning round to scowl upon the unfortunate child, who had been strong enough, in her determination to do right, to resist successfully the will of the woman whom she had every reason to dread.

Arrived at home, Peg walked Ida into the room by the shoulder.

Dick was lounging in a chair, with the inevitable pipe in his mouth.

“Hilloa!” said he, lazily, observing his wife’s movements, “what’s the gal been doing, 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 some gingerbread of the baker, as I told her.”

“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 we go to the trouble of earning the money to pay for gingerbread for you to eat, that you ain’t willing to go in and buy it?”

“I would just as lieves 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; “jest do 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. “Put her in the closet.”

So Ida was incarcerated once more in the dark closet. Yet, in the midst of her desolation, there was a feeling of pleasure in thinking that she was suffering for doing right.

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

“If I were her mother,” said Mrs. Crump, “and had been parted from her 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 Aunt Rachel, shaking her head. “It’s all a delusion. I don’t believe she’s got a mother at all. That Mrs. Hardwick is an imposter. I knew 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.”

“I do,” said Jack, confidently.

“There’s many a hope that’s doomed to disappointment,” said Aunt Rachel.

“So there is,” said Jack. “I was hoping mother would have apple-pudding for dinner to-day, but she didn’t.”

The next day passed, and still no tidings of Ida. There was a cloud of anxiety, even upon Mr. Crump’s usually placid face, and he was more silent than usual at the evening meal.

At night, after Rachel and Jack had both retired, he said, anxiously, “What do you think is the cause of Ida’s prolonged absence, Mary?”

“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Crump, seriously. “It seems to me, if her mother wanted to keep her longer than the time she at first proposed, it would be no more than right that she should write us a line. She must know that we would feel anxious.”

“Perhaps she is so taken up with Ida that she can think of nothing else.”

“It may be so; but if we neither see Ida to-morrow, nor hear from her, I shall be seriously troubled.”

“Suppose she should never come back,” said the cooper, sadly.

“Oh, husband, don’t think of such a thing,” said his wife, distressed.

“We must contemplate it as a possibility,” returned Timothy, gravely, “though not, I hope, as a probability. Ida’s mother has an undoubted right to her; a better right than any we can urge.”

“Then it would be better,” said his wife, tearfully, “if she had never been placed in our charge. Then we should not have had the pain of parting with her.”

“Not so, Mary,” said the cooper, seriously. “We ought to be grateful for God’s blessings, even if he suffers us to possess them but a short time. And Ida has been a blessing to us, I am sure. How many hours have been made happy by her childish prattle! how our hearts have been filled with cheerful happiness and affection when we have gazed upon her! That can’t be taken from us, even if she is, Mary. There’s some lines I met with in the paper, to-night, that express just what I feel. Let me find them.”

The cooper put on his spectacles, and hunted slowly down the columns of the paper, till he came to these beautiful lines of Tennyson, which he read aloud,—

 
“I hold it true, whate’er befall;
I feel it when I sorrow most;
‘Tis better to have loved and lost,
Than never to have loved at all.”
 

“There, wife,” said he, as he laid down the paper; “I don’t know who writ them lines, but I’m sure it’s some one that’s met with a great sorrow, and conquered it.”

“They are beautiful,” said his wife, after a pause; “and I dare say you’re right, Timothy; but I hope we mayn’t have reason to learn the truth of them by experience. After all, it isn’t certain but that Ida will come back. We are troubling ourselves too soon.”

“At any rate,” said the cooper, “there is no doubt that it is our duty to take every means to secure Ida if we can. Of course, if her mother insists upon keeping her, we can’t say anything; but we ought to be sure, before we yield her up, that such is the case.”

“What do you mean, Timothy?” asked Mrs. Crump, with anxious interest.

“I don’t know as I ought to mention it,” said her husband. “Very likely there isn’t anything in it, and it would only make you feel more anxious.”

“You have already aroused my anxiety,” said his wife. “I should feel better if you would tell me.”

“Then I will,” said the cooper. “I have sometimes doubted,” he continued, lowering his voice, “whether Ida’s mother really sent for her.”

“And the letter?” queried Mrs. Crump, looking less surprised than he supposed she would.

“I thought—mind it is only a guess on my part—that Mrs. Hardwick might have got somebody to write it for her.”

“It is very singular,” murmured Mrs. Crump, in a tone of abstraction.

“What is singular?”

“Why, the very same thought occurred to me. Somehow, I couldn’t help feeling a little suspicious of Mrs. Hardwick, though perhaps unjustly. But what object could she have in obtaining possession of Ida?”

“That I cannot conjecture; but I have come to one determination.”

“And what is that?”

“Unless we learn something of Ida within a week from the time she left here, I shall go on to Philadelphia, or send Jack, and endeavor to get track of her.”

CHAPTER XV. AUNT RACHEL’S MISHAPS

THE week which had been assigned by Mr. Crump slipped away, and still no tidings of Ida. The house seemed lonely without her. Not until then, did they understand how largely she had entered into their life and thoughts. But worse even, than the sense of loss, was the uncertainty as to her fate.

When seven days had passed the cooper said, “It is time that we took some steps about finding Ida. I had intended to go to Philadelphia myself, to make inquiries about her, but I am just now engaged upon a job which I cannot very well leave, and so I have concluded to send Jack.”

“When shall I start?” exclaimed Jack, eagerly.

“To-morrow morning,” answered his father, “and you must take clothes enough with you to last several days, in case it should be necessary.”

“What good do you suppose it will do, Timothy,” broke in Rachel, “to send such a mere boy as Jack?”

“A mere boy!” repeated her nephew, indignantly.

“A boy hardly sixteen years old,” continued Rachel. “Why, he’ll need somebody to take care of him. Most likely you’ll have to go after him.”

“What’s the use of provoking a fellow so, Aunt Rachel?” said Jack. “You know I’m most eighteen. Hardly sixteen! Why, I might as well say you’re hardly forty, when everybody knows you’re most fifty.”

“Most fifty!” ejaculated the scandalized spinster. “It’s a base slander. I’m only forty-three.”

“Maybe I’m mistaken,” said Jack, carelessly. “I didn’t know exactly. I only judged from your looks.”

“‘Judge not that ye be not judged!’” said Rachel, whom this explanation was not likely to appease. “The world is full of calumny and misrepresentation. I’ve no doubt you would like to shorten my days upon the earth, but I sha’n’t live long to trouble any of you. I feel that, ere the summer of life is over, I shall be gathered into the garden of the Great Destroyer.”

At this point, Rachel applied a segment of a pocket-handkerchief to her eyes; but unfortunately, owing to circumstances, the effect, instead of being pathetic, as she had intended, was simply ludicrous.

It so happened that a short time previous the inkstand had been partially spilled on the table, and this handkerchief had been used to sop it up. It had been placed inadvertently on the window-seat, where it had remained till Rachel, who sat beside the window, called it into requisition. The ink upon it was by no means dry. The consequence was that, when Rachel removed it from her eyes, her face was found to be covered with ink in streaks,—mingling with the tears that were falling, for Rachel always had tears at her command.

The first intimation the luckless spinster had of her misfortune, was conveyed in a stentorian laugh from Jack, whose organ of mirthfulness, marked very large by the phrenologist, could not withstand such a provocation to laughter.

He looked intently at the dark traces of sorrow upon his aunt’s face, of which she was yet unconscious—and doubling up, went into a perfect paroxysm of laughter.

Aunt Rachel looked equally amazed and indignant.

“Jack!” said his mother, reprovingly, for she had not observed the cause of his amusement. “It’s improper for you to laugh at your aunt in such a rude manner.”

“Oh, I can’t help it, mother. It’s too rich! Just look at her,” and Jack went off into another paroxysm.

Thus invited, Mrs. Crump did look, and the rueful expression of Rachel, set off by the inky stains, was so irresistibly comical, that, after a little struggle, she too gave way, and followed Jack’s example.

Astounded and indignant at this unexpected behavior of her sister-in-law, Rachel burst into a fresh fit of weeping, and again had recourse to the handkerchief.

“I’ve stayed here long enough, if even my sister-in-law, as well as my own nephew, from whom I expect nothing better, makes me her laughing-stock. Brother Timothy, I can no longer remain in your dwelling to be laughed at; I will go to the poor-house, and end my life as a pauper. If I only receive Christian burial, when I leave the world, it will be all I hope or expect from my relatives, who will be glad enough to get rid of me.”

The second application of the handkerchief had so increased the effect, that Jack found it impossible to check his laughter, while the cooper, whose attention was now for the first time drawn to his sister’s face, burst out in a similar manner.

This more amazed Rachel than even Mrs. Crump’s merriment.

“Even you, Timothy, join in ridiculing your sister!” she exclaimed, in an ‘Et tu Brute,’ tone.

“We don’t mean to ridicule you, Rachel,” gasped Mrs. Crump, with difficulty, “but we can’t help laughing–”

“At the prospect of my death,” uttered Rachel. “Well, I’m a poor forlorn creetur, I know; I haven’t got a friend in the world. Even my nearest relations make sport of me, and when I speak of dying they shout their joy to my face.”

“Yes,” gasped Jack, “that’s it exactly. It isn’t your death we’re laughing at, but your face.”

“My face!” exclaimed the insulted spinster. “One would think I was a fright, by the way you laugh at it.”

“So you are,” said Jack, in a state of semi-strangulation.

“To be called a fright to my face!” shrieked Rachel, “by my own nephew! This is too much. Timothy, I leave your house forever.”

The excited maiden seized her hood, which was hanging from a nail, and hardly knowing what she did, was about to leave the house with no other protection, when she was arrested in her progress towards the door by the cooper, who stifled his laughter sufficiently to say: “Before you go, Rachel, just look in the glass.”

Mechanically his sister did look, and her horrified eyes rested upon a face which streaked with inky spots and lines seaming it in every direction.

In her first confusion, Rachel did not understand the nature of her mishaps, but hastily jumped to the conclusion that she had been suddenly stricken by some terrible disease like the plague, whose ravages in London she had read of with the interest which one of her melancholy temperament might be expected to find in it.

Accordingly she began to wring her hands in an excess of terror, and exclaimed in tones of piercing anguish,—

“It is the fatal plague spot! I feel it; I know it! I am marked for the tomb. The sands of my life are fast running out!”

Jack broke into a fresh burst of merriment, so that an observer might, not without reason, have imagined him to be in imminent danger of suffocation.

“You’ll kill me, Aunt Rachel; I know you will,” he gasped out.

“You may order my coffin, Timothy,” said Rachel, in a sepulchral tone. “I sha’n’t live twenty-four hours. I’ve felt it coming on for a week past. I forgive you for all your ill-treatment. I should like to have some one go for the doctor, though I know I’m past help. I will go up to my chamber.”

“I think,” said the cooper, trying to look sober, “that you will find the cold-water treatment efficacious in removing the plague-spots, as you call them.”

Rachel turned towards him with a puzzled look. Then, as her eyes rested, for the first time, upon the handkerchief which she had used, its appearance at once suggested a clew by which she was enabled to account for her own.

Somewhat ashamed of the emotion which she had betrayed, as well as the ridiculous figure which she had cut, she left the room abruptly, and did not make her appearance again till the next morning.

After this little episode, the conversation turned upon Jack’s approaching journey.

“I don’t know,” said his mother, “but Rachel is right. Perhaps Jack isn’t old enough, and hasn’t had sufficient experience to undertake such a mission.”

“Now, mother,” expostulated Jack, “you ain’t going to side against me, are you?”

“There is no better plan,” said Mr. Crump, quietly, “and I have sufficient confidence in Jack’s shrewdness and intelligence to believe he may be trusted in this business.”

Jack looked gratified by this tribute to his powers and capacity, and determined to show that he was deserving of his father’s favorable opinion.

The preliminaries were settled, and it was agreed that he should set out early the next morning. He went to bed with the brightest anticipations, and with the resolute determination to find Ida if she was anywhere in Philadelphia.

CHAPTER XVI. THE FLOWER-GIRL

HENRY BOWEN was a young artist of moderate talent, who had abandoned the farm, on which he had labored as a boy, for the sake of pursuing his favorite profession. He was not competent to achieve the highest success. The foremost rank in his profession was not for him. But he had good taste, a correct eye, and a skilful hand, and his productions were pleasing and popular. A few months before his introduction to the reader’s notice, he had formed a connection with a publisher of prints and engravings, who had thrown considerable work in his way.

“Have you any new commission this morning?” inquired the young artist, on the day before Ida’s discovery that she had been employed to pass off spurious coins.

“Yes,” said the publisher, “I have thought of something which I think may prove attractive. Just at present, the public seem fond of pictures of children in different characters. I should like to have you supply me with a sketch of a flower-girl, with, say, a basket of flowers in her hand. The attitude and incidentals I will leave to your taste. The face must, of course, be as beautiful and expressive as you can make it, where regularity of features is not sufficient. Do you comprehend my idea?”

“I believe I do,” said the young man, “and hope to be able to satisfy you.”

The young artist went home, and at once set to work upon the task he had undertaken. He had conceived that it would be an easy one, but found himself mistaken. Whether because his fancy was not sufficiently lively, or his mind was not in tune, he was unable to produce the effect he desired. The faces which he successively outlined were all stiff, and though perhaps sufficiently regular in feature, lacked the great charm of being expressive and life-like.

“What is the matter with me?” he exclaimed, impatiently, throwing down his pencil. “Is it impossible for me to succeed? Well, I will be patient, and make one trial more.”

He made another trial, that proved as unsatisfactory as those preceding.

“It is clear,” he decided, “that I am not in the vein. I will go out and take a walk, and perhaps while I am in the street something will strike me.”

He accordingly donned his coat and hat, and, descending, emerged into the great thoroughfare, where he was soon lost in the throng. It was only natural that, as he walked, with his task still in his thoughts, he should scrutinize carefully the faces of such young girls as he met.

“Perhaps,” it occurred to him, “I may get a hint from some face I may see. That will be better than to depend upon my fancy. Nothing, after all, is equal to the masterpieces of Nature.”

But the young artist was fastidious. “It is strange,” he thought, “how few there are, even in the freshness of childhood, that can be called models of beauty. That child, for example, has beautiful eyes but a badly-cut mouth, Here is one that would be pretty, if the face was rounded out; and here is a child, Heaven help it! that was designed to be beautiful, but want and unfavorable circumstances have pinched and cramped it.”

It was at this point in the artist’s soliloquy that, in turning the corner of a street, he came upon Peg and Ida.

Henry Bowen looked earnestly at the child’s face, and his own lighted up with pleasure, as one who stumbles upon success just as he has despaired of it.

“The very face I have been looking for!” he exclaimed to himself. “My flower-girl is found at last!”

He turned round, and followed Ida and her companion. Both stopped at a shop-window to examine some articles which were exhibited there. This afforded a fresh opportunity to examine Ida’s face.

“It is precisely what I want,” he murmured. “Now the question comes up, whether this woman, who, I suppose, is the girl’s attendant, will permit me to copy her face.”

The artist’s inference that Peg was merely Ida’s attendant, was natural, since the child was dressed in a style quite superior to her companion. Peg thought that in this way she should be more likely to escape suspicion when occupied in passing spurious coin.

The young man followed the strangely-assorted pair to the apartments which Peg occupied. From the conversation which he overheard he learned that he had been mistaken in his supposition as to the relation between the two, and that, singular as it seemed, Peg had the guardianship of the child. This made his course clearer. He mounted the stairs, and knocked at the door.

“What do you want?” said a sharp voice from within.

“I should like to see you a moment,” was the reply.

Peg opened the door partially, and regarded the young man suspiciously.

“I don’t know you,” she said, shortly. “I never saw you before.”

“I presume not,” said the young man. “We have never met, I think. I am an artist.”

“That is a business I don’t know anything about,” said Peg, abruptly. “You’ve come to the wrong place. I don’t want to buy any pictures. I’ve got plenty of other ways to spend my money.”

Certainly, Mrs. Hardwick, to give her the name she once claimed, did not look like a patron of the arts.

“You have a young girl, about eight or nine years old, living with you,” said the artist.

“Who told you that?” queried Peg, her suspicions at once roused.

“No one told me. I saw her with you in the street.”

Peg at once conceived the idea that her visitor was aware of the fact that that the child was stolen—possibly he might be acquainted with the Crumps, or might be their emissary. She therefore answered, shortly,—

“People that are seen walking together don’t always live together.”

“But I saw the child entering this house with you.”

“What if you did?” demanded Peg, defiantly.

“I was about,” said the artist, perceiving that he was misapprehended, and desiring to set matters right, “I was about to make a proposition which might prove advantageous to both of us.”

“Eh!” said Peg, catching at the hint. “Tell me what it is, and perhaps we may come to terms.”

“It is simply this,” said Bowen, “I am, as I told you, an artist. Just now I am employed to sketch a flower-girl, and in seeking for a face such as I wished to sketch from, I was struck by that of your child.”

“Of Ida?”

“Yes, if that is her name. I will pay you five dollars for the privilege of copying it.”

Peg was fond of money, and the prospect of earning five dollars through Ida’s instrumentality, so easily, blinded her to the possibility that this picture might prove a means of discovery to her friends.

“Well,” said she, more graciously, “if that’s all you want, I don’t know as I have any objections. I suppose you can copy her face here as well as anywhere.”

“I should prefer to have her come to my studio.”

“I sha’n’t let her come,” said Peg, decidedly.

“Then I will consent to your terms, and come here.”

“Do you want to begin now?”

“I should like to do so.”

“Come in, then. Here, Ida, I want you.”

“Yes, Peg.”

“This young man wants to copy your face.”

Ida looked surprised.

“I am an artist,” said the young man, with a reassuring smile. “I will endeavor not to try your patience too much. Do you think you can stand still for half an hour, without much fatigue?”

Ida was easily won by kindness, while she had a spirit which was roused by harshness. She was prepossessed at once in favor of the young man, and readily assented.

He kept her in pleasant conversation while with a free, bold hand, he sketched the outlines of her face and figure.

“I shall want one more sitting,” he said. “I will come to-morrow at this time.”

“Stop a minute,” said Peg. “I should like the money in advance. How do I know that you will come again?”

“Certainly, if you prefer it,” said the young man, opening his pocket-book.

“What strange fortune,” he thought, “can have brought these two together? Surely there can be no relationship.”

The next day he returned and completed his sketch, which was at once placed in the hands of the publisher, eliciting his warm approval.