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--