weather I don't know, but the old lady was cantankerous past all
believing.

'Good-morning, aunt,' I said, when I went in, 'and however did this
happen?'

'Oh, you've come, have you?' she said, without answering my
question, 'and brought enough luggage to last you a year, I'll be
bound. When I was young, a girl could go to spend a week without
nonsense of boxes or the like. A clean shift and a change of
stockings done up in a cotton handkerchief--that was good enough for
us. But now, you girls must all be young ladies. I've no patience
with you.'

I didn't answer back, for answering back is a poor sort of business
when the other person is able to make you pay for every idle word.
Of course, it's different if you haven't anything to lose by it. So
I just said--

'Never mind, aunt dear. I really haven't brought much; and what
would you like me to do first?'

'I should think you'd see for yourself,' says she, thumping her
pillows, 'that there's not a stick in the house been dusted yet--no,
nor a stair swep'.'

So I set to to clean the house, which was cleaner than most people's
already, and I got a nice bit of dinner and took it up on a tray.
But no, that wasn't right, for I'd put the best instead of the
second-best cloth on the tray.