too long deferred, many
thought, which he performed on the day of Mira's birth.

It was in this happy-go-lucky household that Rebecca had grown up. It
was just an ordinary family; two or three of the children were handsome
and the rest plain, three of them rather clever, two industrious, and
two commonplace and dull. Rebecca had her father's facility and had
been his aptest pupil. She "carried" the alto by ear, danced without
being taught, played the melodeon without knowing the notes. Her love
of books she inherited chiefly from her mother, who found it hard to
sweep or cook or sew when there was a novel in the house. Fortunately
books were scarce, or the children might sometimes have gone ragged and
hungry.

But other forces had been at work in Rebecca, and the traits of unknown
forbears had been wrought into her fibre. Lorenzo de Medici was flabby
and boneless; Rebecca was a thing of fire and spirit: he lacked energy
and courage; Rebecca was plucky at two and dauntless at five. Mrs.
Randall and Hannah had no sense of humor; Rebecca possessed and showed
it as soon as she could walk and talk.

She had not been able, however, to borrow her parents' virtues and
those of other generous ancestors and escape all the weaknesses in the
calendar. She had not her sister Hannah's patience or her brother
John's sturdy staying power. Her will was sometimes willfulness, and
the ease with which she did most things led her to be impatient of hard
tasks or long ones. But whatever else there was or was not, there was
freedom at Randall's farm. The children grew, worked, fought, ate what
and slept where they could; loved one another and their parents pretty
well, but with no tropical passion; and educated themselves for nine
months of the year, each one in his own way.

As a result of this method Hannah, who could only have been developed
by forces applied from without, was painstaking, humdrum, and limited;
while Rebecca, who apparently needed nothing but space to develop in,
and a knowledge of terms in which to express herself, grew and grew and
grew, always from within outward. Her forces of one sort and another
had seemingly been set in motion when she was born; they needed no
daily spur, but moved of their own accord--towards what no one knew,
least of all Rebecca herself. The field for the exhibition of her
creative instinct was painfully small, and the only use she had made of
it as yet was to leave eggs out of the corn bread