ath her. That was
temporarily a relief. "If I sit here world without end nobody'll see
'em," grimly smiled Rebecca Mary.

It was her legs Rebecca Mary measured against the woodshed wall. It was
her legs she was ashamed of. No wonder the minister's wife had said
to the minister going home from meeting, with Rebecca Mary behind them
unawares,--no wonder she had said, "Robert, HAVE you noticed Rebecca
Mary's legs?"

Rebecca Mary had not heard the reply of the minister, for of course she
had gone away then. If she had stayed she would have heard him say, with
exaggerated prudery, "Felicia! My dear! Were you alluding to Rebecca
Mary's limbs?" for the minister wickedly remembered inadvertent
occasions when he himself had called legs legs.

"LEGS," the minister's wife repeated, calmly--"Rebecca Mary's are too
long for limbs. Robert, that child will grow up one of these days!"

"They all do," sighed the minister. "It's human nature, dear. You'll be
telling me next that there's something the matter with Rhoda's--legs."

The minister's wife gazed thoughtfully ahead at a little trio fast
approaching the vanishing point. Her eyes grew a little wistful.

"There is now, perhaps, but I haven't noticed--I won't look!" she
murmured. "And, anyway, Robert, Rhoda will give us a little time to get
used to it in. But Rebecca Mary isn't the Rhoda kind--I don't believe
Rebecca Mary will give us even three days of grace!"

"I always supposed Rebecca Mary was born that way--grown up," the
minister remarked, tucking a gloved hand comfortably close under his
arm. "I wouldn't let it worry me, dear."

"Oh, I don't--not worry, really," she said, smiling--"only her legs
startled me a little today. If she were mine, I should let her dresses
down."

"If she were Rhod--"

"She isn't, she's Rebecca Mary. Probably if I were Miss Olivia I would
let Rhoda's down!" And she knew she would.

Rebecca Mary on the woodshed floor sat and thought "deep-down" thoughts.
Her eyes were fixed dreamily on a big knothole before her, and the
thoughts seemed to come out of it and stand before her, demanding
imperiously to be thought. One after another--a relentless procession.

"Think me," the first one had commanded. "I'm the Thought of Growing
Up. I saw you measuring your legs, and I concluded it was time for me to
introduce myself. I had to come some time, didn't I?"

"Oh yes," breathed Rebecca Mary, sadly. "I don't suppose I could expect
you to stay in th