“Then where would the world be a hundred years hence?” suggested her nephew.

“Come to an end, most likely,” said Aunt Rachel; “and I don’t know but that would be the best thing.  It’s growing more and more wicked every day.”

It will be seen that no great change has come over Miss Rachel Crump during the years that have intervened.  She takes the same disheartening view of human nature and the world’s prospects, as ever.  Nevertheless, her own hold upon the world seems as strong as ever.  Her appetite continues remarkably good, and although she frequently expresses herself to the effect that there is little use in living, probably she would be as unwilling to leave the world as any one.  I am not sure that she does not derive as much enjoyment from her melancholy as other people from their cheerfulness.  Unfortunately, her peculiar way of enjoying herself is calculated to have rather a depressing influence upon the spirits of those with whom she comes in contact—­always excepting Jack, who has a lively sense of the ludicrous, and never enjoys himself better than in bantering his aunt.

Ida is no less a favorite with Jack than with the other members of the household.  Rough as he is sometimes, Jack is always gentle with Ida.  When she was just learning to walk, and in her helplessness needed the constant care of others, he used, from choice, to relieve his mother of much of the task of amusing the child.  He had never had a little sister, and the care of a child as young as Ida was a novelty to him.  It was, perhaps, this very office of guardian to the child, assumed when she was so young, that made him feel ever after as if she was placed under his special protection.

And Ida was equally attached to Jack.  She learned to look up to him for assistance in anything which she had at heart, and he never disappointed her.  Whenever he could, he would accompany her to school, holding her by the hand; and fond as he was of rough play, nothing would induce him to leave her.

“How long have you been a nurse-maid?” asked a boy, older than himself, one day.

Jack’s fingers itched to get hold of his derisive questioner, but he had a duty to perform, and contented himself with saying, “Just wait a few minutes, and I’ll let you know.”

“I dare say,” was the reply.  “I rather think I shall have to wait till both of us are gray before that time.”

“You won’t have to wait long before you are black and blue,” retorted Jack.

“Don’t mind what he says, Jack,” whispered Ida, fearful lest he should leave her.

“Don’t be afraid, Ida; I won’t leave you; I guess he won’t trouble us another day.”

Meanwhile the boy, emboldened by Jack’s passiveness, followed, with more abuse of the same sort.  If he had been wiser, he would have seen a storm gathering in the flash of Jack’s eye; but he mistook the cause of his forbearance.

The next day, as they were again going to school, Ida saw the same boy dodging round the corner, with his head bound up.