The next day he returned to town and Lucinda came on duty again. She soon found that the nephew’s visit had rendered the aunt harder than ever to get along with. “I’m goin’ to town jus’’s soon as ever I feel well enough,” she declared aggressively on more than one occasion. “An’ nex’ time I go I’m goin’ to stay jus’’s long as ever I’m havin’ a good time. Now, don’t contradict me, Lucinda, because it’s your place to hold your tongue. I’m a great believer in your holding your tongue, Lucinda.” Lucinda, who certainly never felt the slightest inclination toward contradiction, held her tongue, and the poor, unhappy one twisted about in bed, and bemoaned the quietude of her environment by the hour at a time. “Did you say we had a calf?” she asked suddenly one day. “Well, why don’t you answer? When I ask a question I expect an answer. Didn’t you say we had a calf?” Lucinda nodded. “Well, I want Joshua to take that calf to the blacksmith and have him shod behind an’ before right off. To-day—this minute.” “You want the calf shod!” cried Lucinda, suddenly alarmed by the fear lest her mistress had gone light-headed. Aunt Mary glared in a way that showed that she was far from being out of her usual mind. “If I said shod, I guess I meant shod,” she said, icily. “I do sometimes mean what I say. Pretty often—as a usual thing.” Lucinda stood at the foot of the bed, petrified and paralyzed. Then the invalid sat up a little and showed some mercy on her servant’s very evident fright. “I want the calf shod,” she explained, “so’s Joshua can run up an’ down the porch with him.” So far from ameliorating Lucinda’s condition, this explanation rendered it visibly worse. Aunt Mary contemplated her in silence for a few seconds, and she suddenly cried out, in a tone that was full of pathos: “I feel like maybe—maybe—the calf’ll make me think it’s horses’ feet on the pavement.” Lucinda rushed from the room. “She wants the calf shod!” she cried, bursting in upon Joshua, who was piling wood. For once in his life Joshua was shaken out of his usual placidity. “She wants the calf shod!” he repeated blankly. “Yes.” “You can’t shoe a calf.” “But she wants it done.” Joshua regained his self-control. “Oh, well,” he said, turning to go on with his work, “the calf’s gone to the butcher, anyhow. Tell her so.” Lucinda went back to Aunt Mary. “The calf’s gone to the butcher,” she yelled. Aunt Mary frowned heavily. “Then you go an’ get a lamp and turn it up too high an’ leave it,” she said,—“the smell’ll make me think of automobiles.” Lucinda was appalled. As a practical housekeeper she felt that here was a proposition which she could not face. “Well, ain’t you goin’?” Aunt Mary asked tartly. “Of course if you ain’t intendin’ to go I’d be glad to know it; ’n while you’re gone, Lucinda, I wish you’d get me the handle to the ice-cream freezer an’ lay it where I can see it; it’ll help me believe in the smell.”