[CHAPTER XXXIII.]
A FOUR-FOOTED PRODIGAL.
Theer was dismay and confusion in the old Vanderheyden house, this evening. Mrs. Betsey sat abstracted at her tea, as one refusing to be comforted. The chair on which Jack generally sat alert and cheerful at meal times was a vacant chair, and poor soft-hearted Mrs. Betsey's eyes filled with tears every time she looked that way. Jack had run away that forenoon and had not been seen about house or premises since.
"Come now, Betsey," said Miss Dorcas, "eat your toast; you really are silly."
"I can't help it, Dorcas; it's getting dark and he doesn't come. Jack never did stay out so long before; something must have happened to him."
"Oh, you go 'way, Miss Betsey!" broke in Dinah, with the irreverent freedom which she generally asserted to herself in the family counsels, "never you fear but what Jack'll be back soon enough—too soon for most folks; he knows which side his bread's buttered, dat dog does. Bad penny allers sure to come home 'fore you want it."
"And there's no sort of reason, Betsey, why you shouldn't exercise self-control and eat your supper," pursued Miss Dorcas, authoritatively. "A well-regulated mind"—
"You needn't talk to me about a well-regulated mind, Dorcas," responded Mrs. Betsey, in an exacerbated tone. "I haven't got a well-regulated mind and never had, and never shall have; and reading Mrs. Chapone and Dr. Watts on the Mind, and all the rest of them, never did me any good. I'm one of that sort that when I'm anxious I am anxious; so it don't do any good to talk that way to me."
"Well, you know, Betsey, if you'll only be reasonable, that Jack always has come home."