as Joshua can haul it down out of
the attic."

"You ain't thinkin' of goin' travelin'!" the maid cried in consternation;
"you can't never be thinkin' of _that?_"

"No," said her mistress with fine irony; "I want the trunk to make a pie
out of, probably."

Lucinda was speechless.

"Lucinda," her mistress said, after a few seconds had faded away
unimproved, "seems to me I mentioned wantin' Joshua to get down a
trunk--seems to me I did."

The maid turned and left the room. She felt more or less dazed. Nothing so
startling as Aunt Mary's wanting a trunk had happened in years.
Disinheriting Jack was not in it by comparison. She went slowly away to
find Joshua and found him in the farther end of the rear woodhouse--John
Watkins, like several of his ilk, having marked each forward step in the
world by a back extension of his house.

Joshua was chopping wood; his ax was high in the air. He also was calm and
unsuspecting.

"She's goin' to the city all alone!" Lucinda's voice suddenly proclaimed
behind him.

The ax fell.

"Who says so?" its handler demanded, facing about in surprise.

"She says so."

Joshua picked up the ax and poised it afresh. He was himself again.

"She'll go then," he said calmly.

Lucinda marched around in front of him, and planted herself firmly among
the chips.

"Joshua Whittlesey!"

"We can't help it," said Joshua stolidly. "We're here to mind her. If she
wants to go to New York, or to change her will, all we've got to do is to
be simple witnesses."

"She don't want Miss Arethusa telegraphed," said Lucinda.

"I don't blame her," said Joshua; "if I was her and if I was goin' to New
York I wouldn't want no one telegraphed."

"She wants her trunk out of the attic."

"Then she'll get her trunk out of the attic. When does she want it?"

"She wants it now."

[Illustration 3]

"She's goin' to the city all alone!' Lucinda's voice suddenly proclaimed
behind him."

"Then she'll get it now," said Joshua. From the general trend of this and
other remarks of Joshua the reader will readily divine why he had been in
Aunt Mary's employ for thirty years, and had always been characterized by
her as "a most sensible man," and anyone who had seen the alacrity with
which the trunk was brought and the respectful attention with which Aunt
Mary's further commands were received would have been forced to coincide
in her opinion.

The p