and sit quiet, so you'll look neat an'
nice when you get there. Don't be any trouble to Mr. Cobb.--You see,
she's kind of excited.--We came on the cars from Temperance yesterday,
slept all night at my cousin's, and drove from her house--eight miles
it is--this morning."

"Good-by, mother, don't worry; you know it isn't as if I hadn't
traveled before."

The woman gave a short sardonic laugh and said in an explanatory way to
Mr. Cobb, "She's been to Wareham and stayed over night; that isn't much
to be journey-proud on!"

"It WAS TRAVELING, mother," said the child eagerly and willfully. "It
was leaving the farm, and putting up lunch in a basket, and a little
riding and a little steam cars, and we carried our nightgowns."

"Don't tell the whole village about it, if we did," said the mother,
interrupting the reminiscences of this experienced voyager. "Haven't I
told you before," she whispered, in a last attempt at discipline, "that
you shouldn't talk about night gowns and stockings and--things like
that, in a loud tone of voice, and especially when there's men folks
round?"

"I know, mother, I know, and I won't. All I want to say is"--here Mr.
Cobb gave a cluck, slapped the reins, and the horses started sedately
on their daily task--"all I want to say is that it is a journey
when"--the stage was really under way now and Rebecca had to put her
head out of the window over the door in order to finish her
sentence--"it IS a journey when you carry a nightgown!"

The objectionable word, uttered in a high treble, floated back to the
offended ears of Mrs. Randall, who watched the stage out of sight,
gathered up her packages from the bench at the store door, and stepped
into the wagon that had been standing at the hitching-post. As she
turned the horse's head towards home she rose to her feet for a moment,
and shading her eyes with her hand, looked at a cloud of dust in the
dim distance.

"Mirandy'll have her hands full, I guess," she said to herself; "but I
shouldn't wonder if it would be the making of Rebecca."

All this had been half an hour ago, and the sun, the heat, the dust,
the contemplation of errands to be done in the great metropolis of
Milltown, had lulled Mr. Cobb's never active mind into complete
oblivion as to his promise of keeping an eye on Rebecca.

Suddenly he heard a small voice above the rattle and rumble of the
wheels and the creaking of the harness. At first he thought it was a
cricket, a tree toad