the cloth; just use the tray; it's in the cupboard."

Ida obeyed, and set about the preparations. Compare her face with that
which rested sideways upon the pillows, and the resemblance was as
strong as could exist between two people of such different ages: the
same rich-brown hair, the same strongly-pencilled eye-brows; the
deep-set and very dark eyes, the fine lips, the somewhat prominent
jaw-bones, alike in both. The mother was twenty-eight, the daughter
ten, yet the face on the pillow was the more childish at present. In
the mother's eyes was a helpless look, a gaze of unintelligent misery,
such as one could not conceive on Ida's countenance; her lips, too,
were weakly parted, and seemed trembling to a sob, whilst sorrow only
made the child close hers the firmer. In the one case a pallor not
merely of present illness, but that wasting whiteness which is only
seen on faces accustomed to borrow artificial hues; in the other, a
healthy pearl-tint, the gleamings and gradations of a perfect
complexion. The one a child long lost on weary, woful ways, knowing,
yet untaught by, the misery of desolation; the other a child still
standing upon the misty threshold of unknown lands, looking around for
guidance, yet already half feeling that the sole guide and comforter
was within.

It was strange that talk which followed between mother and daughter.
Lotty Starr (that was the name of the elder child, and it became her
much better than any more matronly appellation), would not remain
silent, in spite of the efforts it cost her to speak, and her
conversation ran on the most trivial topics. Except at occasional
moments, she spoke to Ida as to one of her own age, with curious
neglect of the relationship between them; at times she gave herself up
to the luxury of feeling like an infant dependent on another's care;
and cried just for the pleasure of being petted and consoled. Ida had
made up her mind to leave her disclosure till the next morning;
impossible to grieve her mother with such shocking news when she was so
poorly. Yet the little girl with difficulty kept a cheerful
countenance; as often as a moment's silence left her to her own
reflections she was reminded of the heaviness of heart which made
speaking an effort. To bear up under the secret thought of her crime
and its consequences required in Ida Starr a courage different alike in
quality and degree from that of which children are ordinarily capable.
One compensation alone