fish too;
that when she'd clim' as fur as she could in the world, she'd kick the
ladder out from under her, everlastin' quick; that, on being sounded as
to her ability to be of use to the younger children in the future, she
said she guessed she'd done her share a'ready, and she wan't goin' to
burden Will with her poor relations. "She's Susan Randall through and
through!" ejaculated Miranda. "I was glad to see her face turned
towards Temperance. If that mortgage is ever cleared from the farm, 't
won't be Hannah that'll do it; it'll be Rebecca or me!"

XXIV

ALADDIN RUBS HIS LAMP

"Your esteemed contribution entitled Wareham Wildflowers has been
accepted for The Pilot, Miss Perkins," said Rebecca, entering the room
where Emma Jane was darning the firm's stockings. "I stayed to tea with
Miss Maxwell, but came home early to tell you."

"You are joking, Becky!" faltered Emma Jane, looking up from her work.

"Not a bit; the senior editor read it and thought it highly
instructive; it appears in the next issue."

"Not in the same number with your poem about the golden gates that
close behind us when we leave school?"--and Emma Jane held her breath
as she awaited the reply.

"Even so, Miss Perkins."

"Rebecca," said Emma Jane, with the nearest approach to tragedy that
her nature would permit, "I don't know as I shall be able to bear it,
and if anything happens to me, I ask you solemnly to bury that number
of The Pilot with me."

Rebecca did not seem to think this the expression of an exaggerated
state of feeling, inasmuch as she replied, "I know; that's just the way
it seemed to me at first, and even now, whenever I'm alone and take out
the Pilot back numbers to read over my contributions, I almost burst
with pleasure; and it's not that they are good either, for they look
worse to me every time I read them."

"If you would only live with me in some little house when we get
older," mused Emma Jane, as with her darning needle poised in air she
regarded the opposite wall dreamily, "I would do the housework and
cooking, and copy all your poems and stories, and take them to the
post-office, and you needn't do anything but write. It would be
perfectly elergant!"

"I'd like nothing better, if I hadn't promised to keep house for John,"
replied Rebecca.

"He won't have a house for a good many years, will he?"

"No," sighed Rebecca ruefully, flinging herself down by the table and
resting her head on her hand. "Not un