life would have been very different; I should not have understood
myself as well as I always have done. Poor mother,--good, good
mother! Oh, if I could but have her now, and thank her for all her
love, and give her but one year of quiet happiness. To think that I
can see her as if she were standing before me, and yet that she is
gone, is nowhere, never to be brought back to me if I break my heart
with longing!"

Tears stood in her eyes. They meant more than she could ever say to
another, however close and dear to her. The secret of her mother's
life lay in the grave and in her own mind; the one would render it
up as soon as the other. For never would Ida tell in words of that
moment when there had come to her maturing intelligence clear
insight into her mother's history, when the fables of childhood had
no longer availed to blind her, and every recalled circumstance
pointed but to one miserable truth.

"She's happier than we are," Waymark said solemnly. "Think how long
she has been resting."

Ida became silent, and presently spoke with a firmer voice.

"They took her to a hospital in her last illness, and she died
there. I don't know where her grave is."

"And what became of you? Had you friends to go to?"

"No one; I was quite alone.--We had been living in lodgings. The
landlady told me that of course I couldn't stay on there; she
couldn't afford to keep me; I must go and find a home somewhere. Try