"So I think, Timothy. The child's food will not amount to a dollar a
week."

"There's no tellin' when you will get work, Timothy," said Rachel, in
her usual cheerful way. "It isn't well to crow before you are out of the
woods."

"Very true, Rachel. It isn't your failing to look too much at the sunny
side of the picture."

"I'm ready to look at it when I can see it anywhere," answered his
sister, in the same enlivening way.

"Don't you see it in the unexpected good fortune which came with this
child?" asked Timothy.

"I've no doubt you think it very fortunate now," said Rachel, gloomily;
"but a young child's a great deal of trouble."

"Do you speak from experience, Aunt Rachel?" asked Jack.

"Yes," said his aunt, slowly. "If all babies were as cross and
ill-behaved as you were when you were an infant, five hundred dollars
wouldn't begin to pay for the trouble of having them around."

Mr. Harding and his wife laughed at the manner in which the tables had
been turned upon Jack, but the latter had his wits about him
sufficiently to answer: "I've always heard, Aunt Rachel, that the
crosser a child is, the pleasanter he will grow up. What a very pleasant
baby you must have been!"