Some are always looking on the bright side of
things, and others can never see but one side, and that's the dark
one."
"You've hit it, uncle," said Jack, laughing. "Aunt Rachel always
looks as if she was attending a funeral."
"So she is, my boy," said Abel Crump, gravely, "and a sad funeral it
is."
"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.
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