't give you any this spring, for a wonder. Now you go
right up to bed and I'll set some to steeping. Does it hurt you any?"

"Oh yes'm," murmured Rebecca Mary, sadly, but she meant her soul and
Aunt Olivia meant her stomach. She mounted the steep stairs to her
little eavesdropping room and slipped her small spare body out of her
clothes into her scant little nightgown. It was rather a relief to go to
bed. If she could have been sure that Thomas Jefferson--but, no,
Thomas Jefferson was not in bed. As Rebecca Mary lay and waited for her
camomile tea she was certain she could hear him stepping about under the
window. Once he came directly under and "crew," and then Rebecca Mary
hid her head in the pillow for he was letting it out.

"Cock-a-doodle-do--ooo, did-you-see-me-swoo-oo-OOP-it-up?" crowed Thomas
Jefferson, under the window. Rebecca Mary with her eyes pillow-deep
could see him stretching his neck and letting it out. It seemed to her
everybody could hear him--Aunt Olivia downstairs, steeping camomile
'blows, and Mrs. Avery's boarder across the fields.

"Aunt Olivia," whispered Rebecca Mary, while she sipped her bitter tea
a little later, "how much--I suppose precious things cost a great deal,
don't they?"

"My grief!" Aunt Olivia set down the bowl and felt of Rebecca Mary's
temples, then of her wrists. The child was out of her head.

"Di'mond-stones like--like that boarder's--I suppose those cost a great
deal? As much as--how much as, Aunt Olivia?"

"My grief, don't you worry about any di'mond-stones! YOU haven't lost
any. What you'll lose will be your health, if you don't swallow down the
rest o' this tea and go right to sleep like a good girl! No, no, I'm not
going to answer any questions. Drink this; swallow it down."

Rebecca Mary swallowed it down, but she did not go right to sleep like a
good girl. She lay on the hard little bed and thought of many things, or
of one thing many times. Over and over, wearily, drearily, until the sin
of Thomas Jefferson became her sin. She adopted it.

When at last she dropped to sleep it was to dream a Bible dream. Usually
Rebecca Mary liked to dream Bible dreams, but not this one. This one was
different. This one was of Abraham and Isaac. She thought she was right
there and saw Abraham build the little altar and offer up--no, it wasn't
Isaac! It was Thomas Jefferson. And the Abraham in her dream was turning
into HER. The flowing white robes were dwindling to a little scan