“This is, indeed, unexpected,” he said, at last. “It is a new development in Ida's history. May I ask, Mrs. Hardwick, if you have any further proof. I want to be prudent with a child that I love as my own,—if you have any further proof that you are what you claim to be?”
“I judged that this letter would be sufficient,” said the nurse; moving a little in her chair.
“True; but how can we be sure that the writer is Ida's mother?”
“The tone of the letter, sir. Would anybody else write like that?”
“Then you have read the letter?” said the cooper, quickly.
“It was read to me, before I set out.”
“By——”
“By Ida's mother. I do not blame you for your caution,” she continued. “You must be so interested in the happiness of the dear child of whom you have taken such (sic) excelent care, I don't mind telling you that I was the one who left her at your door eight years ago, and that I never left the neighborhood until I found that you had taken her in.”
“And it was this, that enabled you to find the house, to-day.”
“You forget,” said the nurse, “that you were not then living in this house, but in another, some rods off, on the left-hand side of the street.”