o," said Mrs. Crump, "she didn't say, but I guess she will be along
in the course of the afternoon."

"If we only knew where she had gone," said Jack, "we could tell better."

"But as we don't know," said his father, "we must wait patiently till
she comes."

"I guess," said Mrs. Crump, in the spirit of a notable housewife, "I'll
make up some apple-turnovers for supper to-night. There's nothing Ida
likes so well."

"That's where Ida is right," said Jack, "apple-turnovers are splendid."

"They're very unwholesome," remarked Aunt Rachel.

"I shouldn't think so from the way you eat them, Aunt Rachel," retorted
Jack. "You ate four the last time we had them for supper."

"I didn't think you'd begrudge me the little I eat," said Rachel,
dolefully. "I didn't think you took the trouble to keep account of what
I ate."

"Come, Rachel, this is unreasonable," said her brother. "Nobody
begrudges you what you eat, even if you choose to eat twice as much as
you do. I dare say, Jack ate more of them than you did."

"I ate six," said Jack.

Rachel, construing this into an apology, said no more; but, feeling it
unnecessary to explain why she ate what she admitted to be unhealthy,
added, "And if I do eat what's unwholesome, it's because life ain't of
any value to me. The sooner one gets out of this vale of affliction the
better."

"And the way you take to get out of it," said Jack, gravely, "is by
eating apple-turnovers. Whenever you die, Aunt Rachel, we shall have
to put a paragraph in the papers, headed, 'Suicide by eating
apple-turnovers.'"

Rachel intimated, in reply, that she presumed it would afford Jack a
great deal of satisfaction to write such a paragraph.

The evening came. Still no tidings of Ida.

The family began to feel alarmed. An indefinable sense of apprehension
oppressed the minds of all. Mrs. Crump feared that Ida's mother, seeing
her grown up so attractive, could not resist the temptation of keeping
her.

"I suppose," she said, "that she has the best claim to her; but it will
be a terrible thing for us to part with her."

"Don't let us trouble ourselves in that way," said the cooper. "It seems
to me very natural that they should keep her a little longer than they
intended. Besides, it is not too late for her to return to-night."

This cheered Mrs. Crump a little.

The evening passed slowly.

At length there came a knock at the door.

"I guess that is Ida," said Mrs. Crump, joyfully.

Jack sei