The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary | Page 6

some rocks with rather heavy consequences to his aunt's
exchequer, and returned from the West Indies so late that she never had
a visit from him at all that summer; but, barring these slightly
unwelcome incidents, he did remarkably well, and when he returned to
college in the fall he was regarded as having become, at last, a stable
proposition.

"I wonder whether our boy's comin' home for Christmas?" Aunt Mary
asked her niece, Mary, as that happy period of family reunions drew
near. Mary had come up to stay with her aunt while Lucinda went away
to bury a second cousin. Mary was very different from Arethusa,
having a voice that, when raised, was something between an icicle and
a steam whistle, and a temperament so much on the order of her aunt's
that neither could abide the other an hour longer than was absolutely
necessary. But Arethusa had a sprained ankle, so there was no help for
existing circumstances.
"No, he isn't," said Mary, who had no patience at all with her brother,
and showed it. "He's going West with the glee club."
"With the she club!" cried poor Aunt Mary, in affright.
Mary explained.
"I don't like the idea," said the old lady, shaking her head. "Somethin'
will be sure to happen. I can feel it runnin' up and down my bones this
minute."
"Oh, if he can get into trouble, of course, Jack will," said Mary
cheerfully.
Aunt Mary didn't hear her, because she didn't raise her voice
particularly. Besides, the old lady was absorbed for the nonce in the
most dismal sort of prognostications.
And they all came true, too. Something unfortunate beyond all
expectations came to pass during the glee club's visit to Chicago, and
the result was that, before the new year was well out of its incubator
Jack had papers in a breach-of-promise suit served on him. He wrote
Mr. Stebbins that it was all a joke, and had merely been a portion of
that foam which a train of youthful spirits are apt to leave in their wake;
but the girl stood solid for her rights, and, as she had never heard from
her fiancé since the night of the dance, her family--who were rural, but
sharp--thought it would take at least fifteen thousand dollars to patch
the crack in her heart. If the news could have been kept from Aunt

Mary until after Mr. Stebbins had looked into the matter, everything
might have resulted differently. But the Chicago lawyer who had the
case took good care that the wealthy aunt knew all as quickly as
possible, and it seemed as if this was the final straw under which the
camel must succumb.
And Aunt Mary did appear to waver.
"Fifteen thousand dollars!" she cried, aghast. "Heaven help us! What
next?"
It was Lucinda who was seated calmly opposite at this crisis.
"Do you suppose he really did it?" the aunt continued, after a minute of
appalled consideration.
"It's about the only thing he ain't never done," the tried and true servant
answered, her tone more gratingly penetrative than ever.
Aunt Mary eyed her sharply, not to say furiously.
"I wish you'd give a plain answer when I ask you a plain question,
Lucinda," she said coldly. "If you'd ever got a breach-of-promise suit in
the early mail you'd know how I feel. Perhaps--probably."
"I ain't a doubt but what he done it," Lucinda screamed out; "an' if I
was her an' he wouldn't marry me after sayin' he would I'd sue him for a
hundred thousand, an' think I let him off cheap then."
Aunt Mary deigned to smile faintly over the subtlety of this speech; but
the next minute she was frowning blacker than ever.
"A girl from Kalamazoo, too, just up in Chicago for a week--just up in
Chicago long enough to come down on me for fifteen thousand
dollars."
"Maybe she'll take five thousand instead," Lucinda remarked.
"Maybe!" ejaculated her mistress, in fine scorn. "Maybe! Well, if you

don't talk as if money was sweet peas an' would dry up if it wasn't
picked!"
Lucinda screwed up her face.
Aunt Mary gave her one awful look.
"You get me some paper an' my desk, Lucinda," she said. "I think it's
about time I was takin' a hand in it myself. I've been pretty patient, an' I
don't see as it's helped matters any. Now I'm goin' to write that boy a
letter that'll settle him an' his cats, an' his cooks, an' his cabmen, an' his
Kalamazoo, just once for all. I guess I can do what I set out to do.
Pretty generally--most always."
Lucinda brought the desk, and Aunt Mary frowned fearfully and began
to write the letter.
It developed very strongly. As her pen sized up the