for Mrs. Ladd; and
to think we can remember the time he was a barefoot boy without two
shirts to his back! It is strange he hasn't married, with all his
money, and him so fond of children that he always has a pack of them at
his heels."

"There's hope for him still, though," said Miss Jane smilingly; "for I
don't s'pose he's more than thirty."

"He could get a wife in Riverboro if he was a hundred and thirty,"
remarked Miss Miranda.

"Adam's aunt says he was so taken with the little girl that sold the
soap (Clara Belle, did you say her name was?), that he declared he was
going to bring her a Christmas present," continued Miss Ellen.

"Well, there's no accountin' for tastes," exclaimed Miss Miranda.
"Clara Belle's got cross-eyes and red hair, but I'd be the last one to
grudge her a Christmas present; the more Adam Ladd gives to her the
less the town'll have to."

"Isn't there another Simpson girl?" asked Miss Lydia Burnham; "for this
one couldn't have been cross-eyed; I remember Mrs. Ladd saying Adam
remarked about this child's handsome eyes. He said it was her eyes that
made him buy the three hundred cakes. Mrs. Ladd has it stacked up in
the shed chamber."

"Three hundred cakes!" ejaculated Miranda. "Well, there's one crop that
never fails in Riverboro!"

"What's that?" asked Miss Lydia politely.

"The fool crop," responded Miranda tersely, and changed the subject,
much to Jane's gratitude, for she had been nervous and ill at ease for
the last fifteen minutes. What child in Riverboro could be described as
remarkable and winning, save Rebecca? What child had wonderful eyes,
except the same Rebecca? and finally, was there ever a child in the
world who could make a man buy soap by the hundred cakes, save Rebecca?

Meantime the "remarkable" child had flown up the road in the deepening
dusk, but she had not gone far before she heard the sound of hurrying
footsteps, and saw a well-known figure coming in her direction. In a
moment she and Emma Jane met and exchanged a breathless embrace.

"Something awful has happened," panted Emma Jane.

"Don't tell me it's broken," exclaimed Rebecca.

"No! oh, no! not that! It was packed in straw, and every piece came out
all right; and I was there, and I never said a single thing about your
selling the three hundred cakes that got the lamp, so that we could be
together when you told."

"OUR selling the three hundred cakes," corrected Rebecca; "you did as
much as I."

"No,