Nobody else in the world, Rebecca Mary reflected proudly, could pick up a pin without bending. SHE couldn't, herself, even after she had privately practiced a good deal.

"Good afternoon, Rebecca Mary; you out here?" the Caller nodded pleasantly. Folks had such queer ways of saying things. How could you say good afternoon to anybody if she WASN'T here?

"Didn't you hear Mrs. Dixey, Rebecca Mary? I guess you've forgot your manners," came in Aunt Olivia's crisp tones.

"Oh yes'm, I have. I mean I DID. Yes'm, thank you, I'm out here," quavered Rebecca Mary. She was not afraid of the Caller and she had never been afraid of Aunt Olivia, but the horror that was settling round her heart made her clear little voice unsteady. Her eyes were still following Thomas Jefferson on his mincing travels about the yard. The sunshine was on his splendid white coat, but Rebecca Mary felt no pride in him.

"Ain't that the han'somest rooster! You ought to show him at the fair, I declare! See how his feathers glisten in the sun!"

"Thomas Jefferson belongs to Rebecca Mary," Aunt Olivia said, briefly. "She raised him."

"My! Well, he's han'some enough. Ain't it amusing how a nice-feeling rooster like that will go stepping round as if he felt about too toppy to live! He'd ought to wear diamonds."

"Oh, oh, dear, please don't!" breathed Rebecca Mary, softly, but neither of the women heard her.

"Well, well, I must be going. I've made a regular visit. But I tell John when I get away from home, it feels so good I STAY! 'I don't get away any too often,' I says, 'and I guess I've earnt the right.' Well, I must be going if I'm ever going to! Good-bye, Miss Plummer—good-bye, Rebecca Mary. All is, I hope Mis' Avery's boarder'll find her diamond, don't you? But I don't calculate she will. Well, good afternoon. She hadn't ought to have wore the ring, when she knew it was loose in the setting like that. Some folks are just that careless! Well—"

But Rebecca Mary did not hear the rest of the Caller's leave-taking. She had slipped away to Thomas Jefferson out in the sun.

"Oh, come here—come here with me!" she cried, intensely. "Come out behind the barn where we can talk. I've got to say something to you that's awful! I've GOT to, you've got to listen, Thomas Jefferson."

It was still and terribly hot in the treeless glare behind the barn, but it was all in the day's work to Thomas Jefferson. Behind the barn was a beautiful place for bugs.

"Listen! Oh, you poor dear, you've got to listen!" Rebecca Mary cried. "You've got to stop hunting for bugs—and don't you dare to crow! If you crow, Thomas Jefferson, it will break my heart. I don't s'pose you know what you've done—I don't know as you've done it—but there's something awful happened. Oh, Thomas Jefferson, it glittered—I saw it glitter!" Suddenly Rebecca Mary stooped and gathered Thomas Jefferson into her arms. She held him with a passionate clasp against her flat little calico breast. He was HERS. He was all the intimate friend she had ever had. He had been her little downy baby and slept in her hand. She had fed him and watched him grow and been proud of him. He was her all.

"Oh, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson, what was it that glittered in the grass? Tell me and I'll believe you. Say it was a little piece o' glass and I'll put you down and go get you some corn, and we'll never speak of it again. But don't look at me like that—don't look at me like that! You look—GUILTY!"

She rocked him in her arms. In her soul she knew what it was that had glittered. But in Thomas Jefferson's soul—oh, they could not blame Thomas Jefferson!

"You haven't got any soul, poor dear; poor dear, you haven't got any soul, and you can't be guilty without a soul. They couldn't—hang—you." Her voice sank to the merest whisper. She tightened her clasp on the great, soft body and smoothed the soft feathers with a tender, tremulous little hand.

"The Lord didn't put anything in you but a stomach and a—a gizzard. He left your soul out and you're not to blame for that. I don't blame you, Thomas Jefferson, and of course the Lord don't. But Mrs. Avery's boarder—oh, oh, dear, I'm afraid Mrs. Avery's boarder will! You mustn't tell—I mean I mustn't. Nobody must know what it was that glittered in the grass. Do you want to be—searched?

"You know 'xactly where she sat over to this house yesterday morning, when she went by—and how she said you were too sweet for anything—and how she flew her hand round with—with IT on it. You know as well as I do. And it was loose, the di'mond-stone was loose. We didn't either of us know that. We're not to blame if things are loose, and you're not to blame for not having any soul. But oh, oh, dear, how dreadfully it makes us both feel! You'd better give up crowing, Thomas Jefferson; I feel just as if you'd let it out if you crew."

At tea Rebecca Mary played with her spoon, while her berries swam, untasted, in their yellow sea of cream. Aunt Olivia remonstrated.

"Why don't you eat your supper, child?" she asked, sharply. Rebecca Mary was always glad when she said child instead of Rebecca Mary, for then the sharpness did not cut. She was feeling now for the glasses up in her thin gray hair. Aunt Olivia could see everything through those glasses and it made Rebecca Mary tremble to think—oh, oh, dear, suppose she should see the secret hidden in Rebecca Mary's soul! It seemed as if Aunt Olivia trained the glasses directly upon the corner where the secret glittered in the gra—was hidden in Rebecca Mary's troubled little soul. But this is what Aunt Olivia said:

"It's your stomach. What you need is a good dose of camomile tea to tone you up. I didn't give you any this spring, for a wonder. Now you go right up to bed and I'll set some to steeping. Does it hurt you any?"

"Oh yes'm," murmured Rebecca Mary, sadly, but she meant her soul and Aunt Olivia meant her stomach. She mounted the steep stairs to her little eavesdropping room and slipped her small spare body out of her clothes into her scant little nightgown. It was rather a relief to go to bed. If she could have been sure that Thomas Jefferson—but, no, Thomas Jefferson was not in bed. As Rebecca Mary lay and waited for her camomile tea she was certain she could hear him stepping about under the window. Once he came directly under and "crew," and then Rebecca Mary hid her head in the pillow for he was letting it out.

"Cock-a-doodle-do—ooo, did-you-see-me-swoo-oo-OOP-it-up?" crowed Thomas Jefferson, under the window. Rebecca Mary with her eyes pillow-deep could see him stretching his neck and letting it out. It seemed to her everybody could hear him—Aunt Olivia downstairs, steeping camomile 'blows, and Mrs. Avery's boarder across the fields.

"Aunt Olivia," whispered Rebecca Mary, while she sipped her bitter tea a little later, "how much—I suppose precious things cost a great deal, don't they?"

"My grief!" Aunt Olivia set down the bowl and felt of Rebecca Mary's temples, then of her wrists. The child was out of her head.

"Di'mond-stones like—like that boarder's—I suppose those cost a great deal? As much as—how much as, Aunt Olivia?"

"My grief, don't you worry about any di'mond-stones! YOU haven't lost any. What you'll lose will be your health, if you don't swallow down the rest o' this tea and go right to sleep like a good girl! No, no, I'm not going to answer any questions. Drink this; swallow it down."

Rebecca Mary swallowed it down, but she did not go right to sleep like a good girl. She lay on the hard little bed and thought of many things, or of one thing many times. Over and over, wearily, drearily, until the sin of Thomas Jefferson became her sin. She adopted it.

When at last she dropped to sleep it was to dream a Bible dream. Usually Rebecca Mary liked to dream Bible dreams, but not this one. This one was different. This one was of Abraham and Isaac. She thought she was right there and saw Abraham build the little altar and offer up—no, it