The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary Part 13

Joshua continued to fold.

"Then I won't unharness," he said calmly. He hung the robe over the line that was stretched to hang robes over and Lucinda gasped for wind with which to inflate further conversation.

"She says what n.o.body expects is goin' to happen," she panted as soon as she could.

"What n.o.body expects is always happenin' where he's concerned," said Joshua.

"I s'pose he's in some new row," said Lucinda.

"I'm sure he is," said Joshua, "an' if you don't go back to her pretty quick you won't be no better off."

Lucinda turned away and returned to the house. She found Aunt Mary still staring at the letters with the same concentrated fury as before.

"Well, is Joshua a'comin' to the door?" she asked when she saw her maid before her.

"You didn't say for him to come to the door," Lucinda howled, "you said for him to stay harnessed."

Aunt Mary appeared on the verge of ignition.

"Lucinda," she said, "every week I live under the same roof with you your brains strike me 's some shrunk from the week before. What in Heaven's name should I want Joshua to stay harnessed in the barn for? I want him to go for Mr. Stebbins an' I want him to understand 't if Mr. Stebbins can't come he's got to come just the same's if he could anyhow. I may seem quiet to you, Lucinda, but if I do, it only shows all over again how little you know. This is a awful day an' if you knew how awful you'd be half way back to the barn right now. I ain't triflin'-I'm meanin' every word. Every syllable. Every letter."

Lucinda fled out into the open again. Her footprints of the time before were little oblong ponds now and she laid out a new course parallel to their splashes. She found Joshua sponging the dasher.

"She wants you to go straight out again."

Joshua flung the sponge into the pail.

"Then I'll go straight out again," he said, moving toward the horse's head.

"You're to bring Mr. Stebbins whether he can come or not."

"He'll come," said Joshua; and then he backed the horse so suddenly that the buggy wheel nearly went over Lucinda.

"She says this is an awful day-" began Lucinda.

Joshua got into the buggy and tucked the rubber blanket around himself.

"She says-"

Joshua drove out of the barn and away.

Lucinda went slowly back to the house. Aunt Mary had ceased to glare at the letter and was now glaring at the rain instead.

"Lucinda," she said "I'll thank you not to ever mention my nephew to me again. I've took a vow to never speak his name again myself. By no means-not at all-never."

"Which nephew?" shrieked Lucinda.

Aunt Mary's eyes snapped.

"Jack!" she said, with an accent that seemed to split the short word in two.

After a little she spoke again.

"Lucinda, it's all been owin' to the city an' this last is all city. 'F I cared a rap what happened to him after this I'd never let him go near a place over two thousand again as long as he lived. It's no use tryin' to explain things to you, Lucinda, because it never has been any use an'

never will be-an' anyway, I'm done with it all. I sh'll want you for a witness when I'm through with Mr. Stebbins, and then you can get some marmalade out for tea an' we'll all live in peace hereafter."

Joshua returned with Mr. Stebbins and the latter gentleman went to work with a will and willed Jack out of Aunt Mary's. Later Joshua took him home again. Lucinda got the marmalade out of the cellar and Aunt Mary had it with her tea. It was a bitter tea-unsugared indeed-and the days that followed matched.

CHAPTER TEN - THE WOES OF THE DISINHERITED.

It was some days later on in the world's history that Holloway was calling on Bertha Rosscott.

They were sitting in that comfortable library previously referred to and were sweetly unaware that any untoward series of incidents had ever led to an invasion of their privacy.

Holloway lay well back in a sleepy-hollow chair and looked indolently, lazily handsome; his hostess was up on-well up on the divan, and he had the full benefit of her admirable bottines and their dainty heels and buckles.

"Honestly," he said, looking her over with a gaze that was at once roving and well content, "honestly, I think that every time I see you, you appear more attractive than the time before."

"It's very nice of you to say so," she replied. "And, of course, I believe you, for every time that I get a new gown I think that very same thing myself. Still, I do regard it as strange if I look nicely to-day, for I've been crying like a baby all the morning."

"You crying! And why?"

She raised her eyes to his.

"Such bad news!" she said simply.

"From where? Of whom?"

"From mamma, about Bob."

"Have his wounds proved serious?" Holloway looked slightly distressed as was proper.

"It isn't that. It's papa. Papa has forbidden him the house. He's very, very angry."

Holloway looked relieved.

"Your father won't stay angry long, and you know it," he said. "Just think how often he has lost his temper over the boys and how often he's found it again."

"It isn't just Bob," said Mrs. Rosscott. "I've someone else on my mind, too."

"Who, pray?"

"His friend."