"Oh, _everything_!" responded the baby's mother, in a despairing tone.
"Ah, I see, _mustard to mix_," and with these cabalistic words, the visitor took a deliberate survey of her hostess for the first time. "Consider me your grandmother, Sophia, and let me advise you to tidy yourself a little; that will be the first step towards it. A neat morning-dress and clean apron are next best, or perhaps better, than a good fire, in any house. I'll see to the baby."
Aunt Lucy certainly made herself at home. She put the tips of her prunella buskins on the stove hearth, and examined the hem of her skirts to see if they had contracted any dampness or mud stains in her recent walk, and then produced her knitting, as if she was settled down for some time. Mrs. Bunker took the advice, as she had former prescriptions, and found it to work as well. The morning's duties were accomplished with an ease and alacrity that astonished herself, even to making the great chamber as neat as Aunt Lovey's heart could desire, without the mortification of her knowing it had ever been otherwise.
It was not until Mr. Bunker had come from the store, and been duly astonished and delighted at his aunt's unexpected arrival, and the tidy appearance of the whole household--to tell the truth, he wondered how the last happened to be so--that Mrs. Bunker found time to seek an explanation of the significant sentence applied by the old lady to her state of despondency with regard to domestic affairs. Significant she was convinced, though she could not exactly make out the application, as her aunt had seen the mutton chops destined for dinner arrive from the butcher's, and she had never heard of mustard being taken with them. They had been duly served, praised, and eaten; the dinner dishes were washed and put away, so was the baby for his second diurnal nap, and Mrs. Bunker, notwithstanding she had company, found herself seated to her sewing by three o'clock for the first in a month, while Jane, like the unfortunate "maid" mentioned in one of the baby's favorite lullabies, was
Aunt Lovey, looking thoughtfully over her spectacles, thought her nephew's description of his wife not so far out of the way after all, as she hemmed away industriously at a pile of new towels, the most fascinating work next to crochet one can undertake; it slips by so fast and evenly, and there seems to be so much accomplished.