"Now, Aunt Rachel, there's a chance for you," said Jack. "I advise you to improve it. When it's finished, it can be hung up at the Art Rooms, and who knows but you may secure a husband by it?"

"I wouldn't marry," said his aunt, firmly compressing her lips, "not if anybody'd go down on their knees to me."

"Now I am sure, Aunt Rachel, that's cruel in you."

"There ain't any man that I'd trust my happiness to."

"She hasn't any to trust," observed Jack, _sotto voce_.

"They're all deceivers," pursued Rachel, "the best of 'em. You can't believe what one of 'em says. It would be a great deal better if people never married at all."

"Then where would the world be a hundred years hence?" suggested her nephew.

"Come to an end, most likely," said Aunt Rachel; "and I don't know but that would be the best thing. It's growing more and more wicked every day."

It will be seen that no great change has come over Miss Rachel Crump during the years that have intervened. She takes the same disheartening view of human nature and the world's prospects, as ever. Nevertheless, her own hold upon the world seems as strong as ever. Her appet.i.te continues remarkably good, and although she frequently expresses herself to the effect that there is little use in living, probably she would be as unwilling to leave the world as any one. I am not sure that she does not derive as much enjoyment from her melancholy as other people from their cheerfulness. Unfortunately, her peculiar way of enjoying herself is calculated to have rather a depressing influence upon the spirits of those with whom she comes in contact--always excepting Jack, who has a lively sense of the ludicrous, and never enjoys himself better than in bantering his aunt.

Ida is no less a favorite with Jack than with the other members of the household. Rough as he is sometimes, Jack is always gentle with Ida.

When she was just learning to walk, and in her helplessness needed the constant care of others, he used, from choice, to relieve his mother of much of the task of amusing the child. He had never had a little sister, and the care of a child as young as Ida was a novelty to him. It was, perhaps, this very office of guardian to the child, a.s.sumed when she was so young, that made him feel ever after as if she was placed under his special protection.

And Ida was equally attached to Jack. She learned to look up to him for a.s.sistance in anything which she had at heart, and he never disappointed her. Whenever he could, he would accompany her to school, holding her by the hand; and fond as he was of rough play, nothing would induce him to leave her.

"How long have you been a nurse-maid?" asked a boy, older than himself, one day.

Jack's fingers itched to get hold of his derisive questioner, but he had a duty to perform, and contented himself with saying, "Just wait a few minutes, and I'll let you know."

"I dare say," was the reply. "I rather think I shall have to wait till both of us are gray before that time."

"You won't have to wait long before you are black and blue," retorted Jack.

"Don't mind what he says, Jack," whispered Ida, fearful lest he should leave her.

"Don't be afraid, Ida; I won't leave you; I guess he won't trouble us another day."

Meanwhile the boy, emboldened by Jack's pa.s.siveness, followed, with more abuse of the same sort. If he had been wiser, he would have seen a storm gathering in the flash of Jack's eye; but he mistook the cause of his forbearance.

The next day, as they were again going to school, Ida saw the same boy dodging round the corner, with his head bound up.

"What's the matter with him, Jack?" she asked.

"I licked him like blazes, that's all," said Jack, quietly.

"I guess he'll let us alone after this."

CHAPTER VIII. A STRANGE VISITOR.

IT was about eleven o'clock in the forenoon, Mrs. Crump was in the kitchen, busy in preparations for dinner, when a loud knock was heard at the door.

"Who can it be?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mrs. Crump. "Aunt Rachel, there's somebody at the door; won't you be kind enough to see who it is?"

"People have no business to call at such an hour in the morning,"

grumbled Aunt Rachel, as she laid down her knitting reluctantly, and rose from her seat. "n.o.body seems to have any consideration for anybody else. But that's the way of the world."

Opening the outer door, she saw before her a tall woman, dressed in a gown of some dark stuff, with marked, and not altogether pleasant features.

"Are you the lady of the house?" inquired the visitor.

"There ain't any ladies in this house," said Rachel. "You've come to the wrong place. We have to work for a living here."

"The woman of the house, then. It doesn't make any difference about names. Are you the one I want to see?"

"No, I ain't," said Rachel, shortly.

"Will you lead me to your mistress, then?"

"I have none."

The visitor's eyes flashed, as if her temper was easily roused.

"I want to see Mrs. Crump," she said, impatiently. "Will you call her, or shall I go and announce myself?"

"Some folks are mighty impatient," muttered Rachel. "Stay here, and I'll call her to the door."

In a short time Mrs. Crump presented herself.

"Won't you come in?" she asked, pleasantly.

"I don't care if I do," was the reply. "I wish to speak to you on important business."

Mrs. Crump, whose interest was excited, led the way into the sitting-room.

"You have in your family," said the stranger, after seating herself, "a girl named Ida."

Mrs. Crump looked up suddenly and anxiously. Could it be that the secret of Ida's birth was to be revealed at last!

"Yes," she said.

"Who is not your child."

"But _whom_ I love as such; whom I have always taught to look upon me as a mother."

"I presume so. It is of her that I wish to speak to you."

"Do you know anything of her parentage?" inquired Mrs. Crump, eagerly.