"Are you sure of that, Aunt Rachel?" asked Jack.

"Yes, I've got a presentiment that it's so."

"Then, if you're sure of it," said her nephew, gravely, "it may be as
well to order the coffin in time. What style would you prefer?"

Rachel retreated to her room in tears, exclaiming that he needn't be in
such a hurry to get her out of the world; but she came down to supper,
and ate with her usual appetite.

Ida is no less a favorite with Jack than with the rest of the household.
Indeed, he has constituted himself her especial guardian. Rough as he is
in the playground, he is always gentle with her. 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 young, that made
him feel ever after as if she were placed under his special protection.

Ida was equally attached to Jack. She learned to look to him for
assistance in any plan she had formed, 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 nursemaid?" asked a boy older than himself,
one day.