“Shut up the store at half-past four or five today,” she said; “and there are two things I want you to do for me outside. Go around the furniture stores, and get some kind of small sofa that will turn into a bed at night, and whatever extra bed-clothes we need for it--as cheap as you can. We’ve got a pillow to spare, haven’t we? You can put those two chairs out in the Resting House; that will make a place for the bed in this room. You must have it all ready when I get back to-morrow night. You needn’t say anything to the girls, except that I am away for a day. And then--or no: _you_ can do it better, father.” The girl had spoken swiftly, but with ready precision. As she turned now to the wondering Ben, she lost something of her collected demeanor, and hesitated for a moment. “I want you--I want you to see Reuben Tracy, and ask him to come here at six to-morrow,” she said. She deliberated upon this for an instant, and held out her hand as if she had changed her mind. Then she nodded, and said: “Or no: tell him I will come to his office, and at six sharp. It will be better that way.” When she had perfunctorily kissed them both, and gone, silence fell upon the room. Ben took his pipe out of his pocket and looked at it with tentative longing, and then at the stove. “You can go out in the yard and smoke, if you want to, but not in here,” said Lucinda, promptly. “You wouldn’t dare think of such a thing if she were here,” she added, with reproach. Ben put back his pipe and seated himself again by the fire. “Mighty queer girl, that, eh?” he said. “When she gets stirred up, she’s a hustler, eh?” “It must be she takes it from you,” said Lucinda, with a modified grin of irony. The sarcasm fell short of its mark. “No,” said Ben, with quiet candor, “she gets it from my father. He used to count on licking a lock-tender somewhere along the canal every time he made a trip. I remember there was one particular fellow on the Montezuma Ma’ash that he used to whale for choice, but any of ’em would do on a pinch. He was jest blue-mouldy for a fight all the while, your grandfather was. He was Benjamin Franklin Lawton, the same as me, but somehow I never took much to rassling round or fighting. It’s more in my line to take things easy.” Lucinda bore an armful of dishes out into the kitchen, without making any reply, and Ben, presently wearying of solitude, followed to where she bent over the sink, enveloped in soap-suds and steam. “I suppose you’ve got an idea what she’s gone for?” he propounded, with caution. “It’s a ‘_who_’ she’s gone for,” said Lucinda. Pronouns were not Ben’s strong point, and he said, “Yes, I suppose it is,” rather helplessly. He waited in patience for more information, and by and by it came. “If I was her, I wouldn’t do it,” said Lucinda, slapping a plate impatiently with the wet cloth.