Rebecca! ” The tone within which the note used to be voiced gave all of it the impact of getting been shouted from the housetops. a depressing ruffled head and apprehensive eyes seemed above the dimity unfold. “What are you layin’ in your solid mattress within the sunlight hours for, messin’ up the feathers, and dirtyin’ the pillers together with your dusty boots? ” Rebecca rose guiltily. There appeared no excuse to make. Her offense used to be past rationalization or apology. “I’m sorry, aunt Mirandy—something came around me; I don’t comprehend what. ” “Well, if it comes over you very quickly back we’ll need to discover what ’t is. unfold your mattress up tender this minute, for ’Bijah Flagg’s bringin’ your trunk upstairs, and that i wouldn’t enable him see one of these cluttered-up room for something; he’d inform all of it over city. ” while Mr. Cobb had post his horses that evening he carried a kitchen chair to the part of his spouse, who used to be sitting at the again porch. “I introduced a bit Randall woman down at the level from Maplewood to-day, mom. She’s family members to the Sawyer ladies an’ is goin’ to dwell with ’em,” he stated, as he sat down and commenced to whittle. “She’s that Aurelia’s baby, the one who ran away with Susan Randall’s son prior to we come right here to stay. ” “How previous a baby? ” “ ’Bout ten, or someplace alongside there, an’ small for her age; yet land! she will be 100 to listen to her speak! She kep’ me jumpin’ tryin’ to respond to her! Of all of the queer young children I ever encounter she’s the queerest. She ain’t no beauty—her face is all eyes; but when she ever grows as much as them eyes an’ fills out a bit she’ll make parents stare. Land, mom! I wish’t you may ’a’ heard her speak. ” “I don’t see what she needed to speak about, a toddler like that, to a stranger,” responded Mrs. Cobb. “Stranger or no stranger, ’t wouldn’t make no distinction to her. She’d check with a pump or a grindstun; she’d consult herself ruther ’n continue nonetheless. ” “What did she discuss? ” “Blamed if i will be able to repeat any of it. She kep’ me so stunned. I didn’t have my wits approximately me. She had a bit crimson sunshade—it variety o’ gave the impression of a doll’s amberill,5 ’n’ she clung to it like a burr, to a woolen stockin’. I recommended her to open it up—the solar used to be so sizzling; yet she acknowledged no, ’t may fade, an’ she tucked it below her costume. ‘It’s the dearest factor in existence to me,’ says she, ‘but it’s a dreadful care. ’ Them’s the very phrases, an’ it’s all of the phrases I bear in mind. ‘It’s the dearest factor in lifestyles to me, yet it’s an lousy care! ’ ”—here Mr. Cobb laughed aloud as he tipped his chair again opposed to the facet of the home. “There was once one other factor, yet I can’t get it correct precisely. She used to be talkin’ ’bout the circus parade an’ the snake charmer in a gold chariot, an’ says she, ‘She used to be so appealing past examine, Mr. Cobb, that it made you may have lumps on your throat to examine her. ’ She’ll be comin’ over to work out you, mom, an’ you could dimension her up for your self. I don’ know the way she’ll git on with Mirandy Sawyer—poor little soul! ” This doubt used to be roughly brazenly expressed in Riverboro, which, although, had critiques at the topic; one who it was once a so much beneficiant factor within the Sawyer ladies to take certainly one of Aurelia’s young children to coach, the opposite that the schooling will be acquired at a cost totally out of share to its intrinsic worth.