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 drawn to his sister's face, burst out in a similar manner.
This more amazed Rachel than Martha's merriment.
"Even you, Timothy, join in ridiculing your sister!" she exclaimed, in an "Et tu, Brute" tone.
"We don't mean to ridicule you, Rachel," gasped her sister-in-law, "but we can't help laughing."
"At the prospect of my death!" uttered Rachel, in a tragic tone. "Well, I'm a poor, forlorn creetur, I know. Even my nearest relations make sport of me, and when I speak of dying, they shout their joy to my face."
"Yes," gasped Jack, nearly choking, "that's it exactly. It isn't your death we're laughing at, but your face."
"My face!" exclaimed the insulted spinster. "One would think I was a fright by the way you laugh at it."
"So you are!" said Jack, with a fresh burst of laughter.
"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, and was about to leave the house when she was arrested in her progress toward the door by the cooper, who stifled his laughter sufficiently to say: "Before you go, Rachel, just look in the glass."