strength to study her child, she was like some enchanting
changeling. Aurelia and Hannah had gone on in the dull round and the
common task, growing duller and duller; but now, on a certain stage of
life's journey, who should appear but this bewildering being, who gave
wings to thoughts that had only crept before; who brought color and
grace and harmony into the dun brown texture of existence.

You might harness Rebecca to the heaviest plough, and while she had
youth on her side, she would always remember the green earth under her
feet and the blue sky over her head. Her physical eye saw the cake she
was stirring and the loaf she was kneading; her physical ear heard the
kitchen fire crackling and the teakettle singing, but ever and anon her
fancy mounted on pinions, rested itself, renewed its strength in the
upper air. The bare little farmhouse was a fixed fact, but she had many
a palace into which she now and then withdrew; palaces peopled with
stirring and gallant figures belonging to the world of romance; palaces
not without their heavenly apparitions too, breathing celestial
counsel. Every time she retired to her citadel of dreams she came forth
radiant and refreshed, as one who has seen the evening star, or heard
sweet music, or smelled the rose of joy.

Aurelia could have understood the feeling of a narrow-minded and
conventional hen who has brought a strange, intrepid duckling into the
world; but her situation was still more wonderful, for she could only
compare her sensations to those of some quiet brown Dorking who has
brooded an ordinary egg and hatched a bird of paradise. Such an idea
had crossed her mind more than once during the past fortnight, and it
flashed to and fro this mellow October morning when Rebecca came into
the room with her arms full of goldenrod and flaming autumn leaves.

"Just a hint of the fall styles, mother," she said, slipping the stem
of a gorgeous red and yellow sapling between the mattress and the foot
of the bed. "This was leaning over the pool, and I was afraid it would
be vain if I left it there too long looking at its beautiful
reflection, so I took it away from danger; isn't it wonderful? How I
wish I could carry one to poor aunt Miranda to-day! There's never a
flower in the brick house when I'm away."

It was a marvelous morning. The sun had climbed into a world that held
in remembrance only a succession of golden days and starlit nights. The
air was fragrant with ripening f