"It is time that we took some steps about finding Ida," the cooper said. "I would like to go to Philadelphia myself, to make inquiries about her, but I am just now engaged upon a job which I cannot very well leave, and so I have concluded to send Jack."

 

"When shall I start?" exclaimed Jack.

 

"To-morrow morning," answered his father.

 

"What good do you think it will do," interposed Rachel, "to send a mere boy like Jack to Philadelphia?"

 

"A mere boy!" repeated her nephew, indignantly.

 

"A boy hardly sixteen years old," continued Rachel. "Why, he'll need somebody to take care of him. Most likely you'll have to go after him."

 

"What's the use of provoking a fellow so, Aunt Rachel?" said Jack. "You know I'm 'most eighteen. Hardly sixteen! Why, I might as well say you're hardly forty, when we all know you're fifty."

 

"Fifty!" ejaculated the scandalized spinster. "It's a base slander. I'm only thirty-seven."

 

"Maybe I'm mistaken," said Jack, carelessly. "I didn't know exactly how old you were; I only judged from your looks."

 

At this point, Rachel applied a segment of a pocket handkerchief to her eyes; but, unfortunately, owing to circumstances, the effect instead of being pathetic, as she intended it to be, was simply ludicrous.

 

It so happened that a short time previous, the inkstand had been partially spilled upon the table, through Jack's carelessness and this handkerchief had been used to sop it up. It had been placed inadvertently upon the window seat, where it had remained until Rachel, who was sitting beside the window, called it into requisition. The ink upon it was by no means dry. The consequence was, that, when Rachel removed it from her eyes, her face was discovered to be covered with ink in streaks mingling with the tears that were falling, for Rachel always had a plentiful supply of tears at command.

 

The first intimation the luckless spinster had of her mishap was conveyed in a stentorian laugh from Jack.

 

He looked intently at the dark traces of sorrow on his aunt's face--of which she was yet unconscious--and doubling up, went off into a perfect paroxysm of laughter.

 

"Jack!" said his mother, reprovingly, for she had not observed the cause of his amusement, "it's improper for you to laugh at your aunt in such a rude manner."

 

"Oh, I can't help it, mother. Just look at her."

 

Thus invited, Mrs. Harding did look, and the rueful expression of Rachel, set off by the inky stains, was so irresistibly comical, that, after a hard struggle, she too gave way, and followed Jack's example.

 

Astonished and indignant at this unexpected behavior of her sister-in-law, Rachel burst into a fresh fit of weeping, and again had recourse to the handkerchief.

 

"This is too much!" she sobbed. "I've stayed here long enough, if even my sister-in-law, as well as my own nephew, from whom I expect nothing better, makes me her laughingstock. Brother Timothy, I can no longer remain in your dwelling to be laughed at; I will go to the poorhouse and end my miserable existence as a common pauper. If I only receive Christian burial when I leave the world, it will be all I hope or expect from my relatives, who will be glad enough to get rid of me."