ed down the cobwebs, but it
needs more 'n a broom to take out twenty-five years' dirt."

Her militant demeanour was somewhat chastened when she presented
herself at the house. When the door was opened, she brushed past Miss
Evelina with a muttered explanation, and made straight for the kitchen
stove. She heated a huge kettle of water, filled her pail, and then,
for the first time, spoke.

"I've come to finish cleanin' as I promised I would, and I hope it'll
offset your nursin' of Minty. And if that blackmailing play-doctor
comes while I'm at work, you can tell him that I ain't speakin' to
Minty from the hall, nor settin' foot in her room, and that he needn't
be in any hurry to make out his bill, 'cause I'm goin' to take my time
about payin' it."

She went upstairs briskly, and presently the clatter of moving
furniture fairly shook the house over Miss Evelina's head. It sounded
as if Miss Mehitable did not know there was an invalid in the house,
and found distinct pleasure in making unnecessary noise. The quick,
regular strokes of the scrubbing brush swished through the hall.
Resentment inspired the ministering influence to speed.

But it was not in Miss Hitty's nature to cherish her wrath long, while
the incense of yellow soap was in her nostrils and the pleasing foam of
suds was everywhere in sight.

Presently she began to sing, in a high, cracked voice which wavered
continually off the key. She went through her repertory of hymns with
conscientious thoroughness. Then a bright idea came to her.

"There wa'n't nothin' said about singin'," she said to herself. "I
wa'n't to speak to Minty from the hall, nor set foot into her room.
But I ain't pledged not to sing in the back room, and I can sing any
tune I please, and any words. Reckon Minty can hear."

The moving of the ladder drowned the sound made by the opening of the
lower door. Secure upon her height, with her head near the open
transom of the back room. Miss Mehitable began to sing.

"Araminta Lee is a bad, un-grate-ful girl," she warbled, to a tune the
like of which no mortal had ever heard before. "She fell off of a
step-lad-der, and sprained her an-kle, and the play-doc-tor said it was
broke in or-der to get more mon-ey, breaks being more val-u-able than
sprains. Araminta Lee is lay-ing in bed like a la-dy, while her poor
old aunt works her fingers to the bone, to pay for doc-tor's bills and
nursin'. Four dollars and a half," she chanted, m