"Probably he's too busy to write," said the cooper, wishing to relieve his wife's anxiety, though he, too, was not without anxiety.
"I told you so," said Rachel, in one of her usual fits of depression. "I told you Jack wasn't fit to be sent on such an errand. If you'd only taken my advice you wouldn't have had so much worry and trouble about him now. Most likely he's got into the House of Reformation, or somewhere. I knew a young man once who went away from home, and never came back again. Nobody ever knew what became of him till his body was found in the river half eaten by fishes."
"How can you talk so, Rachel?" said Mrs. Harding, "and about your own nephew, too?"
"This is a world of trial and disappointment," said Rachel, "and we might as well expect the worst, for it's sure to come."
"At that rate there wouldn't be much joy in life," said Timothy. "No, Rachel, you are wrong. God did not send us into the world to be melancholy. He wants us to enjoy ourselves. Now, I have no idea that Jack has jumped into the river, or become food for the fishes. Even if he should happen to tumble in, he can swim."
"I suppose," said Rachel, with mild sarcasm, "you expect him to come home in a coach and four, bringing Ida with him."
"Well," said the cooper, good-humoredly, "that's a good deal better to anticipate than your suggestion, and I don't know but it's as probable."
Rachel shook her head dismally.
"Bless me!" interrupted Mrs. Harding, looking out of the window, in a tone of excitement, "there's a carriage just stopped at the door, and—yes, it is Jack and Ida, too!"
The strange fulfillment of her own ironical suggestion struck even Aunt Rachel. She, too, hastened to the window, and saw a handsome carriage drawn, not by four horses, but by two, standing before the door.