Jack's Ward; Or, The Boy Guardian by Jr. Horatio Alger (the false prince series .TXT) 📖

Martha.

"Perhaps I have," assented Rachel.

"You ought to spare yourself. You can't stand work as well as when you were younger," said Martha, innocently.

"A body'd think I was a hundred by the way you talk," said Rachel, sharply.

"I didn't mean to offend you, Rachel. I thought you might feel as I do. I get tired easier than I used to."

"I guess I'll go upstairs," said Rachel, in the same tone. "There isn't anybody there to tell me how old I am gettin'."

"It's hard to make Rachel out," thought Mrs. Harding. "She takes offense at the most innocent remark. She can't look upon herself as young, I am sure."

Upstairs Rachel took out the letter again, and read it through once more. "I wonder what sort of a man Daniel is," she said to herself. "I wonder if I have ever noticed him. How little we know what others think of us! If he's a likely man, maybe it's my duty to marry him. I feel I'm a burden to Timothy. His income is small, and it'll make a difference of one mouth. It may be a sacrifice, but it's my duty."

In this way Rachel tried to deceive herself as to the real reason which led her to regard with favoring eyes the suit of this supposed lover whom she had never seen, and about whom she knew absolutely nothing.

Jack came home from school at half-past two o'clock. He looked roguishly at his aunt as he entered. She sat knitting in her usual corner.

"Will she go?" thought Jack. "If she doesn't there won't be any fun."

But Jack, whose trick I am far from defending, was not to be disappointed.

At three o'clock Rachel rolled up her knitting, and went upstairs. Fifteen minutes later she came down dressed for a walk.

"Where are you going, Aunt Rachel?" asked Jack.

"Out for a walk," she answered, shortly.

"May I go with you?" he asked, mischievously.

"No; I prefer to go alone," she said, curtly.

"Your aunt has taken a fancy to walking," said Mrs. Harding, when her sister-in-law had left the house. "She was out this forenoon. I don't know what has come over her."

"I do," said Jack to himself.

Five minutes later he put on his hat and bent his steps also to Washington Park.

CHAPTER XI MISS HARDING'S MISTAKE

Miss Rachel Harding kept on her way to Washington Park. It was less than a mile from her brother's house, and though she walked slowly, she got there a quarter of an hour before the time.

She sat down on a seat near the center of the park, and began to look around her. Poor Rachel! her heart beat quicker than it had done for thirty years, as she realized that she was about to meet one who wished to make her his wife.

"I hope he won't be late," she murmured to herself, and she felt of the blue ribbon to make sure that she had not forgotten it.

Meanwhile Jack reached the park, and from a distance surveyed with satisfaction the evident nervousness of his aunt.

"Ain't it rich?" he whispered to himself.

Rachel looked anxiously for the gentleman with the red rose pinned to his coat.

She had to wait ten minutes. At last he came, but as he neared her seat, Rachel felt like sinking into the earth with mortification when she recognized in the wearer a stalwart negro. She hoped that it was a mere chance coincidence, but he approached her, and raising his hat respectfully, said:

"Are you Miss Harding?"

"What if I am?" she demanded, sharply. "What have you to do with me?"

The man looked surprised.

"Didn't you send word to me to meet you here?"

"No!" answered Rachel, "and I consider it very presumptuous in you to write such a letter to me."

"I didn't write you a letter," said the negro, astonished.

"Then what made you come here?" demanded the spinster.

"Because you wrote to me."

"I wrote to you!" exclaimed Rachel, aghast.

"Yes, you wrote to me to come here. You said you'd wear a blue ribbon on your neck, and I was to have a rose pinned to my coat."

Rachel was bewildered.

"How could I write to you when I never saw you before, and don't know your name. Do you think a lady like me would marry a colored man?"

"Who said anything about that?" asked the other, opening his eyes wide in astonishment. "I couldn't marry, nohow, for I've got a wife and four children."

Rachel felt ready to collapse. Was it possible that she had made a mistake, and that this was not her unknown correspondent, Daniel?

"There is some mistake," she said, nervously. "Where is that letter you thought I wrote? Have you got it with you?"

"Here it is, ma'am."

He handed Rachel a letter addressed in a small hand to Daniel Thompson.

She opened it and read:

"Mr. Thompson: I hear you are out of work. I may be able to give you a job. Meet me at Washington Park, Tuesday afternoon, at four o'clock. I shall wear a blue ribbon round my neck, and you may have a red rose pinned to your coat. Otherwise I might not know you. "RACHEL HARDING."

"Some villain has done this," said Rachel, wrathfully. "I never wrote that letter."

"You didn't!" said Daniel, looking perplexed. "Who went and did it, then?"

"I don't know, but I'd like to have him punished for it," said Rachel, energetically.

"But you've got a blue ribbon," said Mr. Thompson. "I can't see through that. That's just what the letter said."

"I suppose somebody wrote the letter that knew I wear blue. It's all a mistake. You'd better go home."

"Then haven't you got a job for me?" asked Daniel, disappointed.

"No, I haven't," said Rachel, sharply.

She hurriedly untied the ribbon from her neck, and put it in