A Christmas Story

William d'Aubrey thinks he has found the answer to his sister Mary's housekeeping troubles: let a man take charge. Mary, a widow worn down by household demands, greets her bachelor brother's confidence with laughter. Their argument becomes a written agreement handing him control of the household for three months. Samuel W. Francis tells this short comic story through William's own voice, allowing his grand theories and brisk commands to set the tone.

The comedy takes shape in everyday negotiations over servants, supplies, carriages and horses. A request for transport becomes a succession of practical obstacles, while William insists that firm authority should settle everything. The two parts, titled 'A Woman's Plan' and 'A Man's Plan,' frame domestic management as a contest between siblings. Readers interested in nineteenth-century household life will find an account of the friction between confident advice and the work of putting it into practice.