ebecca Mary her NIECE," came, a little muffled, from behind the great
bundle.

"Rebecca Mary's niece---- Oh, you mean Miss Plummer's niece, and your
whole name is that! But I suppose she calls you Rebecca or Becky, for
short? Walk in, Rebecca."

But Rebecca Mary was struggling with the paralyzing vision of Aunt
Olivia calling her Becky. She had passed by the lesser wonder of being
called Rebecca without the Mary.

"Oh no'm, indeed; Aunt 'Livia never shortens me," gently gasped the
child. And the minister's wife, measuring from the bundle down, smiled
to herself. There did not seem much room for shortening.

"But walk in, dear--you're going to walk in? I hope you have come to
make me a little call?"

Rebecca Mary struggled out of her paralysis. Here was occasion for new
embarrassment. For Rebecca Mary was honest.

"N-o'm I mean, not a LITTLE call. I've come to spend the afternoon," she
said, slowly, "and I've brought my work."

The bundle--the great bundle--was her work! She advanced into the room
and began carefully to unroll it. It was the turn of the minister's wife
to be paralyzed. She pushed forward a chair, and the child sat down in
it.

"It's my Thousand Quilt that I'm making for Aunt 'Livia," explained
Rebecca Mary. "It's 'most done. There's a thousand pieces in it, and I'm
on the nine hundred and ninety-oneth. I thought proberly you'd have some
work, so I brought mine."

"Yes, I see--" The minister's wife stood looking down at the tight
little red figure among the gorgeous waves of the Thousand Quilt. They
eddied and surged around it in dizzy reds and purples and greens. She
was conscious of being a little seasick, and for relief she turned back
to the puzzle of the little trousers. It had been in her mind at first
to express sorrow at Rhoda's being unfortunately away--and the boys. Now
she was glad she hadn't, for it was quite plain enough that the visitor
had not come to spend the afternoon with the minister's children, but
with the minister's wife.

"It isn't she that's young--it's I," thought the minister's wife, with
kind, laughing eyes. "She's old enough to be my mother." "How old are
you, dear?" she added, aloud.

"Me? I guess you mean Aunt 'Livia, don't you? It's Aunt 'Livia's
birthday I'm making it for, it's going to be a present. Once she gave me
a present on my birthday."

Once!--the minister's wife remembered Rhoda's birthdays and the boys'.
Taken altogether, such a host of little bir