"I promised mamma before she died that I would be as good
to my little sister Rosamond as she had been to me," said the
child, simply; "and she told me in return that I might wait here
and see her laid in her grave." There happened to be an aunt of
Mrs. Welwyn, and an old servant of the family, in the house at
this time, who understood Ida much better than her father did,
and they persuaded him not to take her away. I have heard my
mother say that the effect of the child's appearance at the
funeral on her, and on all who went to see it, was something that
she could never think of without the tears coming into her eyes,
and could never forget to the last day of her life.
It must have been very shortly after this period that I saw Ida
for the first time.
I remember accompanying my mother on a visit to the old house we
have just left, in the summer, when I was at home for the
holidays. It was a lovely, sunshiny morning. There was nobody
indoors, and we walked out into the garden. As we approached that
lawn yonder, on the other side of the shrubbery, I saw, first, a
young woman in mourning (apparently a servant) sitting reading;
then a little girl, dressed all in black, moving toward us slowly
over the bright turf, and holding up before her a baby, whom she
was trying to teach to walk. She looked, to my ideas, so very
young to be engaged in such an occupation as this, and her gloomy
black frock appeared to be such an unnaturally grave garment for
a mere child of her age, and looked so doubly dismal by contrast
with the brilliant sunny lawn on which she stood, that I quite
started when I first saw her, and eagerly asked my mother who she
was.
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