“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. Crump. “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,” said 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 that 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 ever shall.”