Ida clasped her hands passionately together.
"Oh, Mrs. Overtheway! Do you think Papa will ever come home?"
"My child! my dear child!" sobbed the little old lady. "I think he will." ...
"And he is alive—he is coming home!" Ida cried, as she recounted Mrs. Overtheway's story to Nurse, who knew the principal fact of it already. "And she told it to me in this way not to frighten me. I did cry and laugh though, and was very silly; but she said I must not be foolish, but brave like a captain's daughter, and that I ought to thank God for being so good to me, when the children of the other poor men who died will never have their fathers back in this world: and I am thankful, so thankful! Only it is like a mill going in my head, and I cannot help crying. And Papa wrote me a long letter when he was on the island, and he sent it to Mrs. Overtheway because Uncle Garbett told him that I was fond of her, and that she would tell me nicely, and she was to read it, and to give it to me when she had told me. And it is such a lovely letter, with all about the island, and poor Barker, and dear old Carlo, and about the beautiful birds, too, only Mrs. Overtheway made up a great deal of that herself. And please, Nursey, take off my black frock and never let me see it again, for the Captain is really coming home, and, oh! how I wish he would come!"
The poor child was terribly excited, but her habits of obedience stood her in good stead, for though she was vehemently certain that she could not possibly go to sleep, in compliance with Nurse's wishes, she went to bed, and there at last slept heavily and long; so that when she awoke there was only just time to dress and be ready to meet her father. She was putting out her treasures for him to look at, the carved fans and workboxes, the beads and handkerchiefs and feathers, the new letter and the old one—when the Captain came.
A week after the postman had delivered the letter which contained such wonderful news for Ida, he brought another to Mrs. Overtheway's green gate, addressed in the same handwriting—the Captain's. It was not from the Captain, however, but from Ida.
"My dear, dear Mrs. Overtheway,