If I only receive Christian burial, when I leave
the world, it will be all I hope or expect from my relatives, who
will be glad enough to get rid of me."
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 for the first time drawn to his
sister's face, burst out in a similar manner.
This more amazed Rachel than even Mrs. Crump'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 Mrs. Crump, with
difficulty, "but we can't help laughing----"
"At the prospect of my death," uttered Rachel. "Well, I'm a poor
forlorn creetur, I know; I haven't got a friend in the world. Even
my nearest relations make sport of me, and when I speak of dying
they shout their joy to my face."
"Yes," gasped Jack, "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, in a state of semi-strangulation.
"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 hardly knowing what she did, was about to leave the house with
no other protection, when she was arrested in her progress towards
the door by the cooper, who stifled his laughter sufficiently to
say: "Before you go, Rachel, just look in the glass.
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