Ida
by
IDA.
… “Thou shall not lack
The flower that’s like thy face, pale Primrose.”
Cymbeline.
The little old lady lived over the way, through a green gate that shut with a click, and up three white steps. Every morning at eight o’clock the church bell chimed for Morning Prayer–chim! chime! chim! chime!–and every morning at eight o’clock the little old lady came down the white steps, and opened the gate with a click, and went where the bells were calling.
About this time also little Ida would kneel on a chair at her nursery window in the opposite house to watch the old lady come out and go. The old lady was one of those people who look always the same. Every morning her cheeks looked like faded rose-leaves, and her white hair like a snow-wreath in a garden laughing at the last tea-rose. Every morning she wore the same black satin bonnet, and the same white shawl; had delicate gloves on the smallest of hands, and gathered her skirt 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 Captain’s very own self was coming home.
“I shall have a papa all to myself very soon, Nurse,” said Ida. “He has written a letter to me, and made me a picture of his ship; it is the ‘Bonne Esperance,’ which he says means Good Hope. I love this letter better than anything he has ever sent me.”