h pitiless fury. She
rubbed the mahogany with the expression of one who might have been
rubbing salt into the wounds of a bitter enemy.

"Thank goodness he doesn't expect to come home to luncheon today," she
said to herself. "Those porridge bowls get my goat to that extent that
my foot might slip again and I'd drop something worse than pepper on
his food."

Josie had reckoned without her host, as the saying goes. Chester Hunt
did come home to luncheon. She had just put the finishing touch on the
sideboard, having rubbed the massive old silver and scrubbed the
beautiful Wedgwood pitchers so that the former shone with some of its
pristine glory and the latter's little fat cupids and heavy garlands of
roses stood out from their lavender background as they had not done for
a year or more. She had taken down the dusty lace curtains and washed
the dingy windows. The room was no longer dark and gloomy. The sun did
not have to find its way through grime but came joyfully through the
shiny windows and glinted on silver and polished mahogany.

"Now that's something like!" Josie exclaimed, stepping back to view her
handiwork.

"So it is."

Josie prided herself on being steeled against surprise of any sort but
this voice breaking in on her monologue was almost too much for her.
Her heart lost a beat, but her habit of self-control was uppermost and
she was able to turn on Chester Hunt her imperturbable countenance
unlit by intelligence, her eyes dull and unseeing.

"You bane having dirty blacks for help," she ventured. "Is it lunch you
bane come for?"

"I'm ill, Miss Josie Larson," he said with a whimsical look on his
face, that Josie now noticed was drawn and white. "It's that devilish
lumbago that has got me. I hope I did not startle you."

"Yah! I bane hearin ghosts all morning," Josie declared stoutly. "When
I was scroobing the sideboard shelves and picked up two little porridge
bowls, one with rabbits and one with chickens, I thought I heard the
chickens crowing and the rabbits didn't make a sound but I thought I
saw their mouths wiggling."

"Oh!" said the man, his expression changing, "strange ghosts to be
fearing!"

"I don't bane afraid. I don't bane afraid of anything."

"Well, that's good! Any mail? I'll have to get to bed and I'll ask you
to bring me tip a tray of food. Something quite simple, tea and toast
or anything you can think of. This lumbago hits me every now and then."

"Where do you have lumbago?"