godmother who asks you
your wish and then gives it to you! Did you ever read Cinderella, or
The Yellow Dwarf, or The Enchanted Frog, or The Fair One with Golden
Locks?"

"No," said Mr. Cobb cautiously, after a moment's reflection. "I don't
seem to think I ever did read jest those partic'lar ones. Where'd you
get a chance at so much readin'?"

"Oh, I've read lots of books," answered Rebecca casually. "Father's and
Miss Ross's and all the dif'rent school teachers', and all in the
Sunday-school library. I've read The Lamplighter, and Scottish Chiefs,
and Ivanhoe, and The Heir of Redclyffe, and Cora, the Doctor's Wife,
and David Copperfield, and The Gold of Chickaree, and Plutarch's Lives,
and Thaddeus of Warsaw, and Pilgrim's Progress, and lots more.--What
have you read?"

"I've never happened to read those partic'lar books; but land! I've
read a sight in my time! Nowadays I'm so drove I get along with the
Almanac, the Weekly Argus, and the Maine State Agriculturist.--There's
the river again; this is the last long hill, and when we get to the top
of it we'll see the chimbleys of Riverboro in the distance. 'T ain't
fur. I live 'bout half a mile beyond the brick house myself."

Rebecca's hand stirred nervously in her lap and she moved in her seat.
"I didn't think I was going to be afraid," she said almost under her
breath; "but I guess I am, just a little mite--when you say it's coming
so near."

"Would you go back?" asked Mr. Cobb curiously.

She flashed him an intrepid look and then said proudly, "I'd never go
back--I might be frightened, but I'd be ashamed to run. Going to aunt
Mirandy's is like going down cellar in the dark. There might be ogres
and giants under the stairs,--but, as I tell Hannah, there MIGHT be
elves and fairies and enchanted frogs!--Is there a main street to the
village, like that in Wareham?"

"I s'pose you might call it a main street, an' your aunt Sawyer lives
on it, but there ain't no stores nor mills, an' it's an awful one-horse
village! You have to go 'cross the river an' get on to our side if you
want to see anything goin' on."

"I'm almost sorry," she sighed, "because it would be so grand to drive
down a real main street, sitting high up like this behind two splendid
horses, with my pink sunshade up, and everybody in town wondering who
the bunch of lilacs and the hair trunk belongs to. It would be just
like the beautiful lady in the parade. Last summer the circus came to
Temperance,