“I don't understand you, uncle.”
“The funeral of her affections,—that's what I mean. Perhaps you mayn't know that Rachel was, in early life, engaged to be married to a young man whom she ardently loved. She was a different woman then from what she is now. But her lover deserted her just before the wedding was to have come off, and she's never got over the disappointment. But that isn't what I was going to talk about. You haven't told me about your adopted sister.”
“That's what I've come to Philadelphia about,” said Jack, soberly. “Ida has been carried off, and I've been sent in search of her.”
“Been carried off!” exclaimed his uncle, in amazement. “I didn't know such things ever happened in this country. What do you mean?”
In answer to this question Jack told the story of Mrs. Hardwick's arrival with a letter from Ida's mother, conveying the request that the child might, under the guidance of the messenger, be allowed to pay her a visit. To this, and the subsequent details, Abel Crump listened with earnest attention.
“So you have reason to think the child is in (sic) Phildelphia?” he said, musingly.
“Yes,” said Jack, “Ida was seen in the cars, coming here, by a boy who knew her in New York.”
“Ida!” repeated his Uncle Abel, looking up, suddenly.
“Yes. You know that's my sister's name, don't you?”
“Yes, I dare say I have known it; but I have heard so little of your family lately, that I had forgotten it. It is rather a singular circumstance.”