like the gospel. How do
you suppose she thought that out?"

"She couldn't have thought it out at her age," said Mrs. Cobb; "she
must have just guessed it was that way. We know some things without
bein' told, Jeremiah."

Rebecca took her scolding (which she richly deserved) like a soldier.
There was considerable of it, and Miss Miranda remarked, among other
things, that so absent-minded a child was sure to grow up into a
driveling idiot. She was bidden to stay away from Alice Robinson's
birthday party, and doomed to wear her dress, stained and streaked as
it was, until it was worn out. Aunt Jane six months later mitigated
this martyrdom by making her a ruffled dimity pinafore, artfully shaped
to conceal all the spots. She was blessedly ready with these mediations
between the poor little sinner and the full consequences of her sin.

When Rebecca had heard her sentence and gone to the north chamber she
began to think. If there was anything she did not wish to grow into, it
was an idiot of any sort, particularly a driveling one; and she
resolved to punish herself every time she incurred what she considered
to be the righteous displeasure of her virtuous relative. She didn't
mind staying away from Alice Robinson's. She had told Emma Jane it
would be like a picnic in a graveyard, the Robinson house being as near
an approach to a tomb as a house can manage to be. Children were
commonly brought in at the back door, and requested to stand on
newspapers while making their call, so that Alice was begged by her
friends to "receive" in the shed or barn whenever possible. Mrs.
Robinson was not only "turrible neat," but "turrible close," so that
the refreshments were likely to be peppermint lozenges and glasses of
well water.

After considering the relative values, as penances, of a piece of
haircloth worn next the skin, and a pebble in the shoe, she dismissed
them both. The haircloth could not be found, and the pebble would
attract the notice of the Argus-eyed aunt, besides being a foolish bar
to the activity of a person who had to do housework and walk a mile and
a half to school.

Her first experimental attempt at martyrdom had not been a
distinguished success. She had stayed at home from the Sunday-school
concert, a function of which, in ignorance of more alluring ones, she
was extremely fond. As a result of her desertion, two infants who
relied upon her to prompt them (she knew the verses of all the children
better than