Ida knew not what to reply; for had she counselled strict obedience to her step-mother, she too well knew that her practice would contradict her preaching. “Ah! you think just as I do,” cried Mabel; “we ought to be civil and attentive to Mrs. Aumerle for the sake of peace, and to please Papa, but we need not be ruled by her commands.” “In the present case,” said Ida, avoiding the point of discussion, “I think that our step-mother may be right. I should not be easy if you were to be exposed to the slightest danger.” “Danger! nonsense!” cried Mabel; “when this is Mr. Verdon’s fifteenth ascent, and we are to come down in a couple of hours! Why, even the earl, with his sensitive nerves, does not fear to ascend!” “And yet I cannot help dreading—” “Ida, Ida,” exclaimed Mabel, putting her hand playfully before the lips of her sister, “you have no voice in the matter; Papa never told me to ask your consent or even your opinion. If he see no danger, why should you? You would never be so unkind, so dreadfully unkind, as to prevent my having what would be to me the greatest enjoyment in the world!” Mabel said a great deal more which it is not necessary here to repeat, to remove every lingering objection which might be felt by her sister. Ida disliked the idea of the excursion, though half convinced by Mabel’s arguments that there was no real cause for apprehension; but in her opposition she did not take her stand on the only tenable ground,—that of the duty of submission to lawful authority. Ida, with all her gentleness and tenderness of conscience, felt as strong a repugnance as her sister to bowing to the judgment of the woman to whom her sympathies so little inclined. She constantly repeated to herself that their natures and their spheres were different, and that the step-mother and step-daughters might each pursue their own course of usefulness without interfering with one another. Ida would be on the footing rather of a friendly ally than that of a dependent subject of the mistress of her father’s house. Pride had not lost his hold upon the gentle, self-sacrificing Christian. Mabel was very glad that during the evening the conversation of the family circle turned rather upon Annabella and her husband than on her own share in the morrow’s balloon expedition; she was so fearful lest anything should be said to induce her father to revoke his extorted permission to her to ascend in the car. When the young ladies had retired for the night, the vicar said to his wife, “Did Mabel ask your consent, my dear, to the excursion on which her heart is so greatly set?” (the father, it may be observed, did not draw the nice distinction upon which Mabel had insisted between opinion and consent.) “She did,” replied the lady, folding up her work, “and I put an extinguisher at once upon the project.” “You did?” said the vicar thoughtfully; “well, I daresay, my love, you were right.” CHAPTER XX. A SUNNY MORN.