stop me; for I'm only too grateful for
the idea. It will cool me down; and upon my word, I feel so excited, so
above and beyond myself that I want some safety-valve like this, or I
should fall to dancing in the hall and so disgrace myself and the noble
profession to which I belong."

With the folded cheque in her hand Ida took him up the many stone steps
to the Alexandra ward. The gentle-eyed sister, who had parted from her
so reluctantly, was naturally surprised to see her return so soon, and
accompanied by a fatherly and prosperous old gentleman, who kept close
to her as if he were afraid she might be spirited from him.

"I have come back to--to say good-bye again, sister," said Ida, her
voice faltering a little, but her eyes beaming as they had not beamed
for many a day; "and I want to give you something, something for the
hospital--it is from my dear friend here, Mr. Wordley, who has just
found me. And I want you not to open it until we have gone--say, for
half an hour. And I am going to write to you as I promised; and you can
write to me if you will be so kind; for I can give you the address now.
It is on the back of the cheque."

She had written it in the porter's box.

"I am going--home. Something has happened. But I will write and tell
you; now I can only say"--her voice broke and trembled--"good-bye,
again, and thank you with all my heart." She drew the sister to her
and kissed her; and Mr. Wordley shook the sister's hand, and blew his
nose so loudly that the patients, who had been watching them eagerly,
nodded to each other and exchanged significant glances, and there was a
suppressed excitement in the ward which found adequate expression when,
half an hour afterwards, the sister with flashed cheek and quavering
voice made them acquainted with Ida's gift.

"And now," said Mr. Wordley, after he had shaken hands with several of
the officials, including the porter, "and now, my dear Miss Ida, for
Herondale and--Home! Hi, cab!"

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

The journey down to Herondale cannot be described: whenever Ida thought
of it in the after years, she felt herself trembling and quivering with
the memory of it. Until she had sat in the carriage, and the train had
started and she realised that she was indeed going home--home!--she did
not know what it had cost her to leave Herondale, how much she had
suffered at Laburnum Villa, how deep the iron of dependence had entered
her soul. She was all of a quiver