kirt daintily up from the smallest of feet. Every morning she carried
a clean pocket-handkerchief, and a fresh rose in the same hand with
her Prayer-book; and as the Prayer-book, being bound up with the
Bible, was very thick, she seemed to have some difficulty in so doing.
Every morning, whatever the weather might be, she stood outside the
green gate, and looked up at the sky to see if this were clear, and
down at the ground to see if that were dry; and so went where the
bells were calling.

Ida knew the little old lady quite well by sight, but she did not know
her name. Perhaps Ida's great-uncle knew it; but he was a grave,
unsociable man, who saw very little of his neighbours, so perhaps he
did not; and Ida stood too much in awe of him to trouble him with idle
questions. She had once asked Nurse, but Nurse did not know; so the
quiet orphan child asked no more. She made up a name for the little
old lady herself, however, after the manner of Mr. John Bunyan, and
called her Mrs. Overtheway; and morning after morning, though the
bread-and-milk breakfast smoked upon the table, she would linger at
the window, beseeching--

"One minute more, dear Nurse! Please let me wait till Mrs. Overtheway
has gone to church."

And when the little old lady had come out and gone, Ida would creep
from her perch, and begin her breakfast. Then, if the chimes went on
till half the basinful was eaten, little Ida would nod her head
contentedly, and whisper--

"Mrs. Overtheway was in time."

Little Ida's history was a sad one. Her troubles began when she was
but a year old, with the greatest of earthly losses--for then her
mother died, leaving a sailor husband and their infant child. The
sea-captain could face danger, but not an empty home; so he went back
to the winds and the waves, leaving his little daughter with
relations. Six long years had he been away, and Ida had had many
homes, and yet, somehow, no home, when one day the postman brought her
a large letter, with her own name written upon it in a large hand.
This was no old envelope sealed up again--no make-believe epistle to
be put into the post through the nursery door: it was a real letter,
with a real seal, real stamps, and a great many post-marks; and when
Ida opened it there were two sheets written by the Captain's very own
hand, in round fat characters, easy to read, with a sketch of the
Captain's very own ship at the top, and--most welcome above all!--the
news that the Capta