Her young guardian, though not as gloomy as Aunt Rachel, looked unusually serious.
There was a cloud of anxiety even upon the cooper's usually placid face, and he was more silent than usual at the evening meal.

At night, after Jack and his aunt had retired, he said, anxiously: "What do you think is the cause of Ida's prolonged absence, Martha ?" "I can't tell," said his wife, seriously.

"It seems to me, if her mother wanted to keep her longer it would be no more than right that she should drop us a line.

She must know that we would feel anxious." "Perhaps she is so taken up with Ida that she can think of no one else." "It may be so; but if we neither see Ida to-morrow, nor hear from her, I shall be seriously troubled." "Suppose she should never come back," suggested the cooper, very soberly.
"Oh, husband, don't hint at such a thing," said his wife.
"We must contemplate it as a possibility," said Timothy, gravely, "though not, as I hope, as a probability.

Ida's mother has an undoubted right to her." "Then it would be better if she had never been placed in our charge," said Martha, tearfully, "for we should not have had the pain of parting with her." "Not so, Martha," her husband said, seriously.