“We’ll manage that, or at least I will.  I’ll work on her fears so that she won’t any more dare to say a word about us than to cut her own head off.”

Ida sank down on the floor of the closet into which she had been thrust.  Utter darkness was around her, and a darkness as black seemed to hang over all her prospects of future happiness.  She had been snatched in a moment from parents, or those whom she regarded as such, and from a comfortable and happy though humble home, to this dismal place.  In place of the kindness and indulgence to which she had been accustomed, she was now treated with harshness and cruelty.  What wonder that her heart desponded, and her tears of childish sorrow flowed freely?

CHAPTER XI.

Suspense.

It doesn’t somehow seem natural,” said Mr. Crump, as he took his seat at the tea-table, “to sit down without Ida.  It seems as if half of the family were gone.”

“Just what I’ve said twenty times to-day,” remarked his wife.  “Nobody knows how much a child is to them till they lose it.”

“Not lose it, mother,” said Jack, who had been sitting in a silence unusual for him.”

“I didn’t mean to say that,” said Mrs. Crump.  “I meant till they were gone away for a time.”

“When you spoke of losing,” said Jack, “it made me feel just as Ida wasn’t coming back.”

“I don’t know how it is,” said his mother, thoughtfully, “but that’s just the feeling I’ve had several times to-day.  I’ve felt just as if something or other would happen so that Ida wouldn’t come back.”

“That is only because she has never been away before,” said the cooper, cheerfully.  “It isn’t best to borrow trouble; we shall have enough of it without.”

“You never said a truer word, brother,” said Rachel, lugubriously.  “‘Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.’  This world is a vale of tears.  Folks may try and try to be happy, but that isn’t what they’re sent here for.”

“Now that’s where I differ from you,” said the cooper, good-humoredly, “just as there are many more pleasant than stormy days, so I believe that there is much more of brightness than shadow in this life of ours, if we would only see it.”

“I can’t see it,” said Rachel, shaking her head very decidedly.

“Perhaps you could if you tried.”

“So I do.”

“It seems to me, Rachel, you take more pains to look at the clouds than the sun.”

“Yes,” chimed in Jack; “I’ve noticed whenever Aunt Rachel takes up the newspaper, she always looks first at the (sic) death’s, and next at the fatal accidents and steamboat explosions.”

“It’s said,” said Aunt Rachel, with severe emphasis, “if you should ever be on board a steamboat when it exploded you wouldn’t find much to laugh at.”

“Yes, I should,” said Jack.  “I should laugh——­”

“What!” said Aunt Rachel, horrified.