Lucinda subsided and the rest of the drive was taken in silence.  When they reached the house Aunt Mary enveloped everything in one glance of blended weariness, scorn and contempt, and then made short work of getting to bed, where she slept the luxurious and dreamless sleep of the unjust until late that afternoon.

“My, but she’s come back a terror!” Lucinda cried to Joshua in a high whisper when he brought in the trunk.  “She looks like nothin’ was goin’ to be good enough for her from now on.”

“Nothin’ ain’t goin’ to be good enough for her,” said Joshua calmly.

“What are we goin’ to do, then?” asked Lucinda.

“We’ll have enough to do,” said Joshua, in a tone that was portentous in the extreme, and then he placed the trunk in its proper position for unpacking and went away, leaving Lucinda to unpack it.

Aunt Mary awoke just as the faithful servant was unrolling the green plaid waist, and the instant that she spoke it was plain that her attitude toward life in general was become strangely and vigorously changed, and that for Lucinda the rack was to be newly oiled and freshly racking.

This attitude was not in any degree altered by the unexpected arrival of Arethusa that evening.  Strange tales had reached Arethusa’s ears, and she had flown on the wings of steam and coal dust to see what under the sun it all meant.  Aunt Mary was not one bit rejoiced to see her and 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.”