as not in the least afraid--it was a mental
start rather than a physical one. When she had reached the limb set down
in her programme she sat on it in a little daze of bewildered delight.
She liked it!

"Why, why, it's nice!" Rebecca Mary breathed. Her turn had come for
undisguised astonishment. The leaves all about her nodded to her and
stroked her cheeks and hair and hands. They whispered things into her
ears. They were such friendly little leaves!

Nothing looked quite the same up there. It was a little as if she were
in a new world, and she felt odd thrills of pride, as probably people
who had discovered countries and rivers and north poles felt. Through
a rift in the leaves she could see with her good Plummer eyes a swaying
spot of brown and white that was Aunt Olivia rocking. Suddenly
Rebecca Mary experienced a pang of remorse that she had wasted so many
opportunities like this--that this was her only one. She wished she had
put 2 hrs. instead of 1 hr. over against "Tree climbing," but it was too
late now. She had borrowed Aunt Olivia's open-faced gold watch to serve
as timekeeper, and promptly at the expiration of the 1 hr. she slid down
through the crackling twigs and friendly leaves to the old world below.
She did not allow herself to look back, but she could not help the sigh.
It was going to be harder to grow up than she had thought it would be.

The mud pies she made with conscientious care as Rhoda, the minister's
little girl, had said she used to make them. She made rows and rows of
them and set them in the sun to bake. There were raisin stones in them
all and crimped edges around them. It did not take nearly all the 1 hr.
and 1/2, so she made another and still another batch. When the time was
up she did not sigh, but she had had rather a good time. How many mud
pies she HADN'T made in all those years that were to end today!

Olivicia and the little white cat went to the tea party. Rebecca Mary
thought of inviting Aunt Olivia--she got as far as the porch steps,
but no farther. She caught a glimpse of her own legs and shrank back
sensitively. They seemed to have grown since she measured them against
the woodshed wall. Rebecca Mary felt the contrast between her legs and
the tea party. Aunt Olivia never knew how near she had come to being
invited to take part in the celebration, at Article III. on the
programme.

Rhoda had had tea parties unnumbered, like the sands of the sea. She had
described them flue