a white moth that has just
crept from the shelter of its cocoon, giddy with daylight, and
trembling in the open air. By-and-by this feeling passed away, and one
afternoon Ida was allowed to go by herself into the garden, "just for
a run."

The expression was metaphorical, for she was far from being able to
run; but she crept quietly up and down the walks, and gathered some
polyanthuses, putting them to her face with that pleasure which the
touch of fresh flowers gives to an invalid. Then she saw that the
hedge was budding, and that the gap through which she had scrambled
was filled up. Ida thought of the expedition and smiled. It had
certainly made her very ill, but--it had led to Mrs. Overtheway.

The little old lady did not come that day, and in the evening Ida was
sent for by her uncle. She had not been downstairs in the evenings
since her illness. These interviews with the reserved old gentleman
were always formal, uncomfortable affairs, from which Ida escaped with
a sense of relief, and that evening--being weak with illness and
disappointed by Mrs. Overtheway's absence--her nervousness almost
amounted to terror.

Nurse did her best in the way of encouragement. It was true that Ida's
uncle was not a merry gentleman, but there was such a nice dessert!
What could a well-behaved young lady desire more than to wear her best
frock, and eat almonds and raisins in the dining-room, as if she were
the lady of the house?

"Though I am sorry for the child," Nurse confided to the butler when
she had left Ida with her uncle, "for his looks are enough to frighten
a grown person, let alone a little girl. And do you go in presently,
like a good soul, if you can find an excuse, and let her see a
cheerful face."

But before the kind-hearted old man-servant could find a plausible
pretext for intruding into the dining-room, and giving an encouraging
smile from behind his master's chair, Ida was in the nursery once
more.

She had honestly endeavoured to be good. She had made her curtsey at
the door without a falter--weak as she was. She had taken her place at
the head of the table with all dignity, and had accepted the almonds
and raisins with sufficiently audible thanks. She had replied prettily
enough to her uncle's inquiries after her health; and, anxious to keep
up the conversation, had told him that the hedge was budding.

"_What's_ the matter with the hedge?" he had asked rather sharply; and
when Ida repeated her bit of