"I didn't think you'd begrudge me the little I eat," said his aunt, dolefully. "I didn't think you counted the mouthfuls I took."
"Come, Rachel, don't be so unreasonable," said her brother. "Nobody begrudges you what you eat, even if you choose to eat twice as much as you do. I dare say Jack ate more of the turnovers than you did."
"I ate six," said Jack, candidly.
Rachel, construing this into an apology, said no more.
"If it wasn't for you, Aunt Rachel, I should be in danger of getting too jolly, perhaps, and spilling over. It always makes me sober to look at you."
"It's lucky there's something to make you sober and stiddy," said his aunt. "You are too frivolous."
Evening came, but it did not bring Ida. An indefinable sense of apprehension oppressed the minds of all. Martha feared that Ida's mother, finding her so attractive, could not resist the temptation of keeping her.
"I suppose," she said, "that she has the best claim to her, but it would be a terrible thing for us to part with her."
"Don't let us trouble ourselves about that," said Timothy. "It seems to me very natural that her mother should keep her a little longer than she intended. Think how long it is since she saw her. Besides, it is not too late for her to return to-night."
At length there came a knock at the door.