one else at that very minute.

"Mitchell wrote me a letter," continued Aunt Mary. "He said he was comin'.
Well, dear me, he can eat mince pie and drive with Joshua when he goes for
the mail, but I don't know what else I can do with him. Oh, if I'd only
been born in the city!"

Jack kissed her hand again. He didn't know what to say. Aunt Mary's lot
seemed to border upon the tragic just then and there.

The next day he returned to town and Lucinda came on duty again. She soon
found that the nephew's visit had rendered the aunt harder than ever to
get along with.

"I'm goin' to town jus''s soon as ever I feel well enough," she declared
aggressively on more than one occasion. "An' nex' time I go I'm goin' to
stay jus''s long as ever I'm havin' a good time. Now, don't contradict me,
Lucinda, because it's your place to hold your tongue. I'm a great believer
in your holding your tongue, Lucinda."

Lucinda, who certainly never felt the slightest inclination toward
contradiction, held her tongue, and the poor, unhappy one twisted about in
bed, and bemoaned the quietude of her environment by the hour at a time.

"Did you say we had a calf?" she asked suddenly one day. "Well, why don't
you answer? When I ask a question I expect an answer. Didn't you say we
had a calf?"

Lucinda nodded.

"Well, I want Joshua to take that calf to the blacksmith and have him shod
behind an' before right off. To-day--this minute."

"You want the calf shod!" cried Lucinda, suddenly alarmed by the fear lest
her mistress had gone light-headed.

Aunt Mary glared in a way that showed that she was far from being out of
her usual mind.

"If I said shod, I guess I meant shod," she said, icily. "I do sometimes
mean what I say. Pretty often--as a usual thing."

Lucinda stood at the foot of the bed, petrified and paralyzed.

Then the invalid sat up a little and showed some mercy on her servant's
very evident fright.

"I want the calf shod," she explained, "so's Joshua can run up an' down
the porch with him."

So far from ameliorating Lucinda's condition, this explanation rendered it
visibly worse. Aunt Mary contemplated her in silence for a few seconds,
and she suddenly cried out, in a tone that was full of pathos:

"I feel like maybe--maybe--the calf'll make me think it's horses' feet on
the pavement."

Lucinda rushed from the room.

"She wants the calf shod!" she cried, bursting in upon Joshua, who was
piling wood.

For once in his lif