She's refused to go in and buy some
gingerbread of the baker, as I told her."
"Look here, little gal," said Dick, in a moralizing vein, "isn't
this rayther undootiful conduct on your part? Ain't it a piece of
ingratitude, when we go to the trouble of earning the money to pay
for gingerbread for you to eat, that you ain't willing to go in and
buy it?"
"I would just as lieves go in," said Ida, "if Peg would give me good
money to pay for it."
"That don't make any difference," said the admirable moralist; "jest
do as she tells you, and you'll do right. She'll take the risk."
"I can't!" said the child.
"You hear her?" said Peg.
"Very improper conduct!" said Dick, shaking his head. "Put her in
the closet."
So Ida was incarcerated once more in the dark closet. Yet, in the
midst of her desolation, there was a feeling of pleasure in thinking
that she was suffering for doing right.
When Ida failed to return on the expected day, the Crumps, though
disappointed, did not think it strange.
"If I were her mother," said Mrs. Crump, "and had been parted from
her so long, I should want to keep her as long as I could. Dear
heart! how pretty she is, and how proud her mother must be of her!"
"It's all a delusion," said Aunt Rachel, shaking her head. "It's all
a delusion. I don't believe she's got a mother at all.
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