"Don't you get out," Dr. Sanford said, "until you have had enough of the washtub to last you for five years." "But, Charles," remonstrated his wife, "she'll get her death cold." "She's more likely to get her death hot," he returned, smiling grimly. "Let her soak a while. It won't hurt her. And now let us have supper." He marched off to the dining-room. "Come, Britann; come, Patty." "But you don't mean to leave that poor creature there to die, do you?" Mrs. Sanford pleaded. "I doubt it must be a forerunner of a bad sign to have such things happen in a house." The doctor made no reply, but sat down to his supper quite as if nothing had happened. After the meal he took his pipe and usual seat on the piazza, but was hardly seated before Patty appeared, half-choked with laughter. "Oh, dear, father!" she said, "that foolish thing is in the tub still, and says she won't get out till you tell her to!" "Let her stay there then. She will dry quicker than my boots." "Soapsuds makes green things grow," put in Will; "and Bathalina is as green as if she had been browsing with Nebuchadnezzar." "Do come, father," Patty said, taking his arm. "She'll spend the night there if you don't." Thus urged, Dr. Sanford rose; and the party adjourned to the kitchen, where the maid-servant still squatted amid the half-washed clothing like a very bony mermaid, singing in a defiantly mournful manner: "'Broad is the road that leads to death.'" "Get out of that tub, Bathalina," Dr. Sanford commanded, "and stop that noise." "I'm going home to my Aunt Jeff's," the mermaid said. "Nonsense: you'll do nothing of the sort. Get out of the tub and get dry clothing on." From that day the servant never washed any thing save her own person without an express command from her mistress. Dr. Sanford made her ample amends for the damage done to her attire; and thereafter she spoke of him with the utmost respect, apparently admiring his treatment of her extremely. She held to him as her ideal of manhood, even after she had fallen a victim to the wiles of Peter Mixon, an unscrupulous fellow who had served the Brecks in the days of their father's magnificence. "I can't think what has become of Bathalina," Mrs. Sanford remarked on the evening of the rehearsal. "She can't have staid at the funeral of that cousin's child's wife all this time. It's half-past ten." At that moment the door-bell rang violently. "Some one has come in considerable haste," grandmother Sanford said placidly. "Charles, it is probably some one for thee."