he bridge she was suddenly overcome by the beauty of
the river and leaned over the newly painted rail to feast her eyes on
the dashing torrent of the fall. Resting her elbows on the topmost
board, and inclining her little figure forward in delicious ease, she
stood there dreaming.

The river above the dam was a glassy lake with all the loveliness of
blue heaven and green shore reflected in its surface; the fall was a
swirling wonder of water, ever pouring itself over and over
inexhaustibly in luminous golden gushes that lost themselves in snowy
depths of foam. Sparkling in the sunshine, gleaming under the summer
moon, cold and gray beneath a November sky, trickling over the dam in
some burning July drought, swollen with turbulent power in some April
freshet, how many young eyes gazed into the mystery and majesty of the
falls along that river, and how many young hearts dreamed out their
futures leaning over the bridge rail, seeing "the vision splendid"
reflected there and often, too, watching it fade into "the light of
common day."

Rebecca never went across the bridge without bending over the rail to
wonder and to ponder, and at this special moment she was putting the
finishing touches on a poem.

Two maidens by a river strayed
Down in the state of Maine.
The one was called Rebecca,
The other Emma Jane.
"I would my life were like the stream,"
Said her named Emma Jane,
"So quiet and so very smooth,
So free from every pain."

"I'd rather be a little drop
In the great rushing fall!
I would not choose the glassy lake,
'T would not suit me at all!"
(It was the darker maiden spoke
The words I just have stated,
The maidens twain were simply friends
And not at all related.)

But O! alas I we may not have
The things we hope to gain;
The quiet life may come to me,
The rush to Emma Jane!

"I don't like 'the rush to Emma Jane,' and I can't think of anything
else. Oh! what a smell of paint! Oh! it is ON me! Oh! it's all over my
best dress! Oh I what WILL aunt Miranda say!"

With tears of self-reproach streaming from her eyes, Rebecca flew up
the hill, sure of sympathy, and hoping against hope for help of some
sort.

Mrs. Cobb took in the situation at a glance, and professed herself able
to remove almost any stain from almost any fabric; and in this she was
corroborated by uncle Jerry, who vowed that mother could git anything