THE week which had been assigned by Mr. Crump slipped away, and still notidings of Ida. The house seemed lonely without her. Not until then,did they understand how largely she had entered into their life andthoughts. But worse even, than the sense of loss, was the uncertainty asto her fate.
When seven days had passed the cooper said, "It is time that we tooksome steps about finding Ida. I had intended to go to Philadelphiamyself, to make inquiries about her, but I am just now engaged upona job which I cannot very well leave, and so I have concluded to sendJack."
"When shall I start?" exclaimed Jack, eagerly.
"To-morrow morning," answered his father, "and you must take clothesenough with you to last several days, in case it should be necessary."
"What good do you suppose it will do, Timothy," broke in Rachel, "tosend such a mere boy as Jack?"
"A mere boy!" repeated her nephew, indignantly.
"A boy hardly sixteen years old," continued Rachel. "Why, he'll needsomebody 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. "Youknow I'm most eighteen. Hardly sixteen! Why, I might as well say you'rehardly forty, when everybody knows you're most fifty."
"Most fifty!" ejaculated the scandalized spinster. "It's a base slander.I'm only forty-three."
"Maybe I'm mistaken," said Jack, carelessly. "I didn't know exactly. Ionly judged from your looks."
"'Judge not that ye be not judged!'" said Rachel, whom this explanationwas not likely to appease. "The world is full of calumny andmisrepresentation. I've no doubt you would like to shorten my days uponthe earth, but I sha'n't live long to trouble any of you. I feel that,ere the summer of life is over, I shall be gathered into the garden ofthe Great Destroyer."
At this point, Rachel applied a segment of a pocket-handkerchief to hereyes; but unfortunately, owing to circumstances, the effect, instead ofbeing pathetic, as she had intended, was simply ludicrous.
It so happened that a short time previous the inkstand had beenpartially spilled on the table, and this handkerchief had been used tosop it up. It had been placed inadvertently on the window-seat, whereit had remained till Rachel, who sat beside the window, called it intorequisition. The ink upon it was by no means dry. The consequence wasthat, when Rachel removed it from her eyes, her face was found to becovered with ink in streaks,--mingling with the tears that were falling,for Rachel always had tears at her command.
The first intimation the luckless spinster had of her misfortune, wasconveyed in a stentorian laugh from Jack, whose organ of mirthfulness,marked _very large_ by the phrenologist, could not withstand such aprovocation to laughter.
He looked intently at the dark traces of sorrow upon his aunt's face,of which she was yet unconscious--and doubling up, went into a perfectparoxysm of laughter.
Aunt Rachel looked equally amazed and indignant.
"Jack!" said his mother, reprovingly, for she had not observed the causeof his amusement. "It's improper for you to laugh at your aunt in such arude manner."
"Oh, I can't help it, mother. It's too rich! Just look at her," and Jackwent off into another paroxysm.
Thus invited, Mrs. Crump did look, and the rueful expression of Rachel,set off by the inky stains, was so irresistibly comical, that, after alittle struggle, she too gave way, and followed Jack's example.
Astounded and indignant at this unexpected behavior of hersister-in-law, Rachel burst into a fresh fit of weeping, and again hadrecourse to the handkerchief.
"I've stayed here long enough, if even my sister-in-law, as well asmy own nephew, from whom I expect nothing better, makes me herlaughing-stock. Brother Timothy, I can no longer remain in your dwellingto be laughed at; I will go to the poor-house, and end my life as apauper. If I only receive Christian burial, when I leave the world, itwill be all I hope or expect from my relatives, who will be glad enoughto get rid of me."
The second application of the handkerchief had so increased the effect,that Jack found it impossible to check his laughter, while the cooper,whose attention was now for the first time drawn to his sister's face,burst out in a similar manner.
This more amazed Rachel than even Mrs. Crump's merriment.
"Even you, Timothy, join in ridiculing your sister!" she exclaimed, inan 'Et tu Brute,' tone.
"We don't mean to ridicule you, Rachel," gasped Mrs. Crump, withdifficulty, "but we can't help laughing----"
"At the prospect of my death," uttered Rachel. "Well, I'm a poor forlorncreetur, I know; I haven't got a friend in the world. Even my nearestrelations make sport of me, and when I speak of dying they shout theirjoy to my face."
"Yes," gasped Jack, "that's it exactly. It isn't your death we'relaughing at, but your face."
"My face!" exclaimed the insulted spinster. "One would think I was afright, by the way you laugh at it."
"So you are," said Jack, in a state of semi-strangulation.
"To be called a fright to my face!" shrieked Rachel, "by my own nephew!This is too much. Timothy, I leave your house forever."
The excited maiden seized her hood, which was hanging from a nail, andhardly knowing what she did, was about to leave the house with no otherprotection, when she was arrested in her progress towards the door bythe cooper, who stifled his laughter sufficiently to say: "Before yougo, Rachel, just look in the glass."
Mechanically his sister did look, and her horrified eyes rested upona face which streaked with inky spots and lines seaming it in everydirection.
In her first confusion, Rachel did not understand the nature of hermishaps, but hastily jumped to the conclusion that she had been suddenlystricken by some terrible disease like the plague, whose ravages inLondon she had read of with the interest which one of her melancholytemperament might be expected to find in it.
Accordingly she began to wring her hands in an excess of terror, andexclaimed in tones of piercing anguish,--
"It is the fatal plague spot! I feel it; I know it! I am marked for thetomb. The sands of my life are fast running out!"
Jack broke into a fresh burst of merriment, so that an observer might,not without reason, have imagined him to be in imminent danger ofsuffocation.
"You'll kill me, Aunt Rachel; I know you will," he gasped out.
"You may order my coffin, Timothy," said Rachel, in a sepulchral tone."I sha'n't live twenty-four hours. I've felt it coming on for a weekpast. I forgive you for all your ill-treatment. I should like to havesome one go for the doctor, though I know I'm past help. I will go up tomy chamber."
"I think," said the cooper, trying to look sober, "that you will findthe cold-water treatment efficacious in removing the plague-spots, asyou call them."
Rachel turned towards him with a puzzled look. Then, as her eyes rested,for the first time, upon the handkerchief which she had used, itsappearance at once suggested a clew by which she was enabled to accountfor her own.
Somewhat ashamed of the emotion which she had betrayed, as well as theridiculous figure which she had cut, she left the room abruptly, and didnot make her appearance again till the next morning.
After this little episode, the conversation turned upon Jack'sapproaching journey.
"I don't know," said his mother, "but Rachel is right. Perhaps Jackisn't old enough, and hasn't had sufficient experience to undertake sucha mission."
"Now, mother," expostulated Jack, "you ain't going to side against me,are you?"
"There is no better plan," said Mr. Crump, quietly, "and I havesufficient confidence in Jack's shrewdness and intelligence to believehe may be trusted in this business."
Jack looked gratified by this tribute to his powers and capacity, anddetermined to show that he was deserving of his father's favorableopinion.
The preliminaries were settled, and it was agreed that he should set outearly the next morning. He went to bed with the brightest anticipations,and with the resolute determination to find Ida if she was anywhere inPhiladelphia.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE FLOWER-GIRL.