“Oh, if you grudge me the little I eat,” said his aunt, in severe sorrow, “I will go without.”
“Tut, Rachel, nobody grudges you anything here,” said her brother, “and as to the poor-house, I've got some good news to tell you that will put that thought out of your heads.”
“What is it?” asked Mrs. Crump, looking up brightly.
“I have found employment.”
“Not at your trade?”
“No, but at something else, which will pay equally well, till trade revives.”
Here he told the story of the chance by which he was enabled to serve Mr. Merriam, and of the engagement to which it had led.
“You are, indeed, fortunate,” said Mrs. Crump. “Two dollars a day, and we've got nearly the whole of the money that came with this dear child. How rich we shall be!”
“Well, Rachel, where are your congratulations?” asked the cooper of his sister, who, in subdued sorrow, was eating her second slice of pudding.
“I don't see anything so very fortunate in being engaged as a porter,” said Rachel, lugubriously. “I heard of a porter, once, who had a great box fall upon him and crush him; and another, who committed suicide.”