“No,” said Aunt Mary; “but he isn’t as well as he makes out. There’s no deceivin’ me, Lucinda!”
“Dear! dear!” cried the Trusty and True; “is that so? What’s to be done? Do you want Joshua to run anywhere?”
Aunt Mary suddenly regained her composure.
“Run anywhere?” she asked, with her usual bitter intonation. “If you ain’t the greatest fool I ever was called upon to bed and board, Lucinda! Will you kindly explain to me how settin’ Joshua trottin’ is goin’ to do any mortal good to my poor boy away off there in that dreadful city?”
“He could telegraph to Miss Arethusa,” Lucinda suggested. The suggestion bespoke the superior moral quality of Lucinda’s make-up—her own feeling toward Arethusa being considered.
“I don’t want her,” said Aunt Mary with a positiveness that was final. “I don’t want her. My heavens, Lucinda, ain’t we just had enough of her? Anyhow, if you ain’t, I have. I don’t want her, nor no livin’ soul except my trunk; an’ I want that just as quick as Joshua can haul it down out of the attic.”
“You ain’t thinkin’ of goin’ travelin’!” the maid cried in consternation; “you can’t never be thinkin’ of that?”
“No,” said her mistress with fine irony; “I want the trunk to make a pie out of, probably.”
Lucinda was speechless.
“Lucinda,” her mistress said, after a few seconds had faded away unimproved, “seems to me I mentioned wantin’ Joshua to get down a trunk—seems to me I did.”