oming--it is very
near to! Sit there and listen and smile--oh yes, smile, SMILE. I don't
wonder! I would too, only I'm too glad. When you're TOO glad you can't
smile. I've been waiting for it to come. Olivicia, seems as if I'd been
waiting a thousan' years. You're so young, you've only lived such little
while, of course I don't expect you understand the deep-downness inside
o' me when I think--"

The address fluttered and came to a standstill here. Rebecca Mary was
suddenly minded that Olivicia was in the dark; must be enlightened
before she could smile understandingly.

"Why, you poor dear!--why, you don't know what it is that's coming and
that's near to! It's the--city, Olivicia," enlightened Rebecca Mary,
gently, to insure against shock. "Aunt Olivia's going--to--the--city."

In Rebecca Mary's dreamings it had always been THE city. It did not need
local habitation and a name; enough that it had streets upon streets,
houses upon houses upon houses, a dazzling swirl of men, women, and
little children--noise, glitter, glory. In her dreamings the city was
something so wondrous and grand that Heaven might have been its name.
The streets upon streets were not paved with gold, of course--of course
she knew they were not paved with gold! But in spite of herself she knew
that she would be disappointed if they did not shine.

Aunt Olivia had said it that morning. At breakfast--quite
matter-of-factly. Think of saying it matter-of-factly!

"I'm going to the city soon, Rebecca Mary," she had said, between sips
of her tea. "Perhaps by Friday week, but I haven't set the day, really.
There's a good deal to do."

Rebecca Mary had been helping do it all day. Now it was nearly time for
the pageant of red and gold in the west that Rebecca Mary loved, and she
had come up here with the beautiful being to watch it through the tiny
panes of the attic window, but more to ease the aching rapture in her
soul by speech. She must say it out loud. The city--the city--to the
city of streets and houses and men and wonders upon wonders!

Olivicia had come in the capacity of calm listener; for nothing excited
Olivicia.

"I," Aunt Olivia had said, but Aunt Olivia usually said "I." There was
no discouragement in that to Rebecca Mary. It did not for a moment occur
to her that "I" did not mean "we."

The valise they had got down from its cobwebby niche was roomy; it would
hold enough for two. Rebecca Mary knew that, because she had packed it
s