Jack's Ward; Or, The Boy Guardian, Jr. Horatio Alger [top books to read .TXT] 📗

There was a look in the eyes of the nurse, carefully guarded, yet not wholly concealed, which showed that she was quite aware of Ida's feeling toward her, and resented it. But whether or not she was playing a part, she did not betray this feeling openly, but pressed the unwilling child more closely to her bosom.

Ida breathed a sigh of relief when she was released, and moved quietly away, wondering what it was that made the woman so disagreeable to her.

"Is my nurse a good woman?" she asked, thoughtfully, when alone with Mrs. Harding, who was setting the table for dinner.

"A good woman! What makes you ask that?" queried her adopted mother, in surprise.

"I don't know," said Ida.

"I don't know anything to indicate that she is otherwise," said Mrs. Harding. "And, by the way, Ida, she is going to take you on a little excursion to-morrow."

"She going to take me!" exclaimed Ida. "Why, where are we going?"

"On a little pleasure trip; and perhaps she may introduce you to a pleasant lady, who has already become interested in you, from what she has told her."

"What could she say of me?" inquired Ida. "She has not seen me since I was a baby."

"Why," answered the cooper's wife, a little puzzled, "she appears to have thought of you ever since, with a good deal of affection."

"Is it wicked," asked Ida, after a pause, "not to like those who like us?"

"What makes you ask?"

"Because, somehow or other, I don't like this Mrs. Hardwick, at all, for all she was my old nurse, and I don't believe I ever shall."

"Oh, yes, you will," said Mrs. Harding, "when you find she is exerting herself to give you pleasure."

"Am I going with her to-morrow morning?"

"Yes. She wanted you to go to-day, but your clothes were not in order."

"We shall come back at night, shan't we?"

"I presume so."

"I hope we shall," said Ida, decidedly, "and that she won't want me to go with her again."

"Perhaps you will feel differently when it is over, and you find you have enjoyed yourself better than you anticipated."

Mrs. Harding exerted herself to fit Ida up as neatly as possible, and when at length she was got ready, she thought with sudden fear: "Perhaps her mother will not be willing to part with her again."

When Ida was ready to start, there came upon all a little shadow of depression, as if the child were to be separated from them for a year, and not for a day only. Perhaps this was only natural, since even this latter term, however brief, was longer than they had been parted from her since, in her infancy, she had been left at their door.

The nurse expressly desired that none of the family should accompany her, as she declared it highly important that the whereabouts of Ida's mother should not be known.

"Of course," she added, "after Ida returns she can tell you what she pleases. Then it will be of no consequence, for her mother will be gone. She does not live in this neighborhood. She has only come here to see her child."

"Shall you bring her back to-night?" asked Mrs. Harding.

"I may keep her till to-morrow," said the nurse. "After seven years' absence her mother will think that short enough."

To this, Mrs. Harding agreed, though she felt that she should miss Ida, though absent but twenty-four hours.

The nurse walked as far as Broadway, holding Ida by the hand.

"Where are we going?" asked the child, timidly. "Are you going to walk all the way?"

"No," said the nurse; "not all the way—perhaps a mile. You can walk as far as that, can't you?"

"Oh, yes."

They walked on till they reached the ferry at the foot of Courtland Street.

"Did you ever ride in a steamboat?" asked the nurse, in a tone meant to be gracious.

"Once or twice," answered Ida. "I went with Brother Jack once, over to Hoboken. Are we going there now?"

"No; we are going to the city you see over the water."

"What place is it? Is it Brooklyn?"

"No; it is Jersey City."

"Oh, that will be pleasant," said Ida, forgetting, in her childish love of novelty, the repugnance with which the nurse had inspired her.

"Yes, and that is not all; we are going still further," said the nurse.

"Are we going further?" asked Ida, in excitement. "Where are we going?"

"To a town on the line of the railroad."

"And shall we ride in the cars?" asked Ida.

"Yes; didn't you ever ride in the cars?"

"No, never."

"I think you will like it."

"And how long will it take us to go to the place you are going to carry me to?"

"I don't know exactly; perhaps three hours."

"Three whole hours in the cars! How much I shall have to tell father and Jack when I get back!"

"So you will," replied Mrs. Hardwick, with an unaccountable smile—"when you get back."

There was something peculiar in her tone, but Ida did not notice it.

She was allowed to sit next the window in the cars, and took great pleasure in surveying the fields and villages through which they were rapidly whirled.

"Are we 'most there?" she asked, after riding about two hours.

"It won't be long," said the nurse.

"We must have come ever so many miles," said Ida.

"Yes, it is a good ways."

An hour more passed, and still there was no sign of reaching their journey's end. Both Ida and her companion began to feel hungry.