nd the glare
which she directed over the edge of the counterpane bore testimony to the
truth of this statement.

"Whatever did you come for?" she demanded inhospitably. "Lucinda didn't
send for you, did she?"

Arethusa screamed the best face that she could onto her visit, but Aunt
Mary listened with an inattention that was anything but flattering.

"I don't feel like talkin' over my trip," she said, when she saw her
niece's lips cease to move. "Of course I enjoyed myself because I was with
Jack, but as to what we did an' said you couldn't understand it all if I
did tell you, so what's the use of botherin'."

Arethusa looked neutral, calm and curious. But Aunt Mary frowned and shook
her head.

"S'long as you're here, though, I suppose you may as well make yourself
useful," she said a few minutes later. "Come to think of it, there's an
errand I want you to do for me. I want you to go to Boston the very first
thing to-morrow morning an' buy me some cotton."

Arethusa stared blankly.

"Well," said the aunt, "if you can't hear, you'd better take my
ear-trumpet and I'll say it over again."

"What kind of cotton?" Arethusa yelled.

"Not _stockin's!_" said Aunt Mary; "Cotton! Cotton! C-O-T-T-O-N! It beats
the Dutch how deaf everyone is gettin', an' if I had your ears in
particular, Arethusa, I'd certainly hire a carpenter to get at 'em with a
bit-stalk. Jus's if you didn't know as well as I do how many stockin's
I've got already! I should think you'd quit bein' so heedless, an' use
your commonsense, anyhow. I've found commonsense a very handy thing in
talkin' always. Always."

Arethusa launched herself full tilt into the ear-trumpet.

"What--kind--of--cotton?" she asked in that key of voice which makes the
crowd pause in a panic.

Aunt Mary looked disgusted.

"The Boston kind," she said, nipping her lips.

Arethusa took a double hitch on her larynx, and tried again.

"Do you mean thread?"

Aunt Mary's disgust deepened visibly.

"If I meant silk I guess I wouldn't say cotton. I might just happen to say
silk. I've been in the habit of saying silk when I meant silk and cotton
when I meant cotton, for quite a number of years, and I might not have
changed to-day--I might just happen to not have. I might not have--maybe."

Arethusa withered under this bitter irony.

"How many spools do you want?" she asked in a meek but piercing howl.

"I don't care," said Aunt Mary loftily. "I don't care how many--or what
c