Trumbullses. Dear, no!—not after Rebecca Mary in the course of conversation had said that Aunt Olivia did not countenance the Tony Trumbullses. Rebecca Mary did not say "countenance," but it meant that.

"Her aunt won't let her play with them, Robert. And she'd like to—you needn't tell me Rebecca Mary wouldn't like to! I saw it in her poor little solemn eyes. Besides, she said she asked her aunt once to let her. Robert, aunts are cruel; I never knew it before. They've no business bringing up little Rebecca Marys!"

"My dear! Felicia!" But in the minister's eyes was agreement.

Aunt Olivia took afternoon naps with punctilious regularity—Aunt Olivia herself was punctilious regularity. At half past one, day upon day, she hung out the dish towel, hung up her kitchen apron, and walked with unswerving course into her bedroom. There, disposed upon the dainty bed in rigid lines of unrest, she rested. The naps were often long ones.

A little after the afternoon that Rebecca Mary spent at the minister's the birthday quilt was finished. The thousandth tiny piece was neatly over-'n'-overed to its gorgeous expanse. But Rebecca Mary was not content. She longed to make it complete. She wanted to surprise Aunt 'Livia with it, as Aunt 'Livia on that momentous birthday of her own had surprised her with the little fluff-ball of yellow down that had grown into Thomas Jefferson. That had been such a beautiful surprise, but this—Aunt 'Livia had seen the quilt so many, many times! She had taught Rebecca Mary's stiff little fingers to set the first stitches in it; she had made her rip out this purple square and that pink-checked one, and this one and that one and that. Oh, Aunt 'Livia was ACQUAINTED with the quilt! It would not be much of a surprise.

But Rebecca Mary set her little pointed chin between her little brown palms and pondered, and out of the pondering grew a plan so ambitious and so daring that Rebecca Mary gasped in the throes of it. But she held her ground and entertained it intrepidly. She even grew on friendly terms with it in the end. Here was a way to surprise Aunt 'Livia; Rebecca Mary would do it! That it would entail an almost endless amount of work did not daunt her: Rebecca Mary was a Plummer, and Plummers were not to be daunted. The long vista of patient hours of trying labor that the plan opened up before her set her blood tingling like a warrior's on the eve of battle. What were long, patient hours to a Plummer? Rebecca Mary girded up her loins and went to meet them.

Thereafter at Aunt Olivia's nap times Rebecca Mary disappeared. Day upon day, week upon week, she stole quietly away when the door of Aunt Olivia's bedroom shut. The first time she went oddly loaded down with what would have appeared—if there had been any one for it to "appear" to be a bundle of long sticks. She made two trips into the unknown that first day. The second time the bundle looked much like that one over which her grave blue eyes had peered at the minister's wife when she went to spend the afternoon with her.

It was spring when the mysterious disappearances began. It was summer before Aunt Olivia woke up—not from her nap, but from her inattention. Quite suddenly she came upon the realization that Rebecca Mary was not about the house; nor about the grounds, for she instituted prompt search. She went to all the child's odd little haunts—the grapery, the orchard, the corn-house, even to her own beloved back yard, full of sweet-scented hiding-nooks dear to a child, but sacred ground to Aunt Olivia. Rebecca Mary sometimes did her "stents" there as a special privilege; she might be there now, unprivileged. Aunt Olivia's back yard was almost as full of flowery delights to Rebecca Mary as it was to Aunt Olivia.

The child was not there—not anywhere. Aunt Olivia sought for Thomas Jefferson to inquire of him, but Thomas Jefferson was missing too. She went the rounds again. Where could the child be?

It was a hot, stinging day in late June when Aunt Olivia's suspicions awoke. They had been long in rousing, but, once alert, they developed rapidly into certainties. Her pale eyes glistened, her thin nostrils dilated—Aunt Olivia's whole lean, sharp, unemotional person put on suspicion. The child had gone to see the Tony Trumbullses.

"My land!" ejaculated Aunt Olivia, "after all my forbidding! And she a Plummer!" She sat down suddenly as though a little faint. She had never known a Plummer to disobey before; it was a new experience. It took time to get used to it, and she sat still a long time, rigid and grim, on the edge of the chair. Then as suddenly as she had sat down she got up. It could not be—she refused to entertain the suspicion longer. Rebecca Mary had NOT gone there to that forbidden place; she was in the garden somewhere. Aunt Olivia, a little stiff as if from a chill, went once more in search of the child.

"Rebecca! Rebecca Mary!" she called, at regular intervals. Then sharply, "Rebecca Mary Plummer!" Her voice had thin cadences of suspicion lurking in it against its will.

But there seemed really no doubt. One by one incriminating circumstances occurred to Aunt Olivia. Rebecca Mary had longed to go so much; the Tony Trumbullses, one at a time or in a tumultuous body, had urged her so often; she herself had more than once caught the child gazing wistfully, in passing by, at the bewildering, deafening, frolics of the little Tony Trumbullses. Once Rebecca Mary had asked to go barefoot, as they went. Once she had let out the tight little braids in her neck and rumpled her thin little hair. Once Aunt Olivia had come upon her PLAYING. The remembrance of it now tightened the lines around Aunt Olivia's lips. The child had been running wildly about the yard, shouting in a strange, excited, ridiculous way. When Aunt Olivia in stern displeasure had demanded explanations, she had run on recklessly, calling back over her shoulder: "Don't stop me! I'm a Tony Trumbull!"

"My land!" breathed Aunt Olivia, taking back the suspicion to her breast. "After all my forbidding she's gone down there. She's BEEN going down there dear knows how long. She's waited till I took my naps an' then went. A PLUMMER!"

There was really nowhere else she could have gone. She had never wanted to go anywhere else, except to the minister's, and Rebecca Mary was punctilious and would not think of going THERE again till the minister's wife had returned her visit.

But Aunt Olivia waited. As usual, she went to her room next day at nap time and closed the door behind her. But when a little figure slipped down the road towards the forbidden place a moment later, she was watching behind her blinds. She was groaning as if in pain.

The little figure began to run staidly. Aunt Olivia groaned again. The child was in a hurry to get there—she couldn't wait to walk! There was guilt in every motion of the little figure.

"And she runs like a Plummer," groaned Aunt Olivia.

The next day, and the next, Aunt Olivia watched behind her blinds. The fourth day she put on her afternoon dress and followed the hurrying little figure. Not at once—Aunt Olivia did not hurry. There was a sad reluctance in every movement. It seemed a terrible thing to be following Rebecca Mary—Rebecca Mary Plummer to a forbidden place.

Afar off Aunt Olivia heard faintly the shoutings that always heralded an approach to the Tony Trumbullses, and shuddered. The tumult kept growing clearer; she thought she detected a wild, excited little shout that might be Rebecca Mary's. Her thin lips set into a stern, straight line.

A splash of red caught Aunt Olivia's eye as she drew nearer the joyous whirl of little children. Rebecca Mary wore a little tight red dress. The coil seemed closing in about the child.

Close to the southern boundary fence of Aunt Olivia's land stood an old empty barn. It had been a place for storing surplus hay, once, when there had been surplus hay. For many years now it had been empty. As Aunt Olivia approached it she noticed that its great sliding door was open. Strange, when