ive o'clock. They WERE going to have supper at half past. She
could hear the tea things clinking in the house. She stole up to a
window. There was Aunt Olivia setting the layer-cake on the table. It
looked plump and rich, and it was sugared on top.

"There's strawberry jam in between it," mused Rebecca Mary, regretfully.
"I wish it was apple jelly. I could bear it better if it was apple
jelly." But it was jam. And there was honey, too, to eat with Aunt
Olivia's little fluffy biscuits. How very fond Rebecca Mary was of
honey!

Aunt Olivia stood in the kitchen doorway and rang the supper bell in
long, steady clangs just as usual. But no one responded just as usual,
and by the token she knew Rebecca Mary had not taken the other stitch
that lay between her and supper.

"She's a Plummer," sighed Aunt Olivia, inwardly, unrealizing her own
Plummership, as little Rebecca Mary had unrealized hers. Each recognized
only the other's. The pity that both must be Plummers!

Rebecca Mary stayed out of doors until bedtime. She made but one
confidant.

"I've done it, Thomas Jefferson," she said, sadly. "You ought to be
sorry for me, because if you hadn't crowed I shouldn't have sewed the
hundred and oneth. But you're not really to BLAME," she added, hastily,
mindful of Thomas Jefferson's feelings. "I should have done it sometime
if you hadn't crowed. I knew it was coming. I suppose now I shall have
to starve. You'd think it was pretty hard to starve, I guess, Thomas
Jefferson."

Thomas Jefferson made certain gloomy responses in his throat to the
effect that he was always starving; that any contributions on the
spot in the way of corn kernels, wheat grains, angleworms--any
little delicacies of the kind--would be welcome. And Rebecca Mary,
understanding, led the way to the corn bin. In the dark hours that
followed, the intimacy between the great white rooster and the little
white girl took on tenderer tones.

At breakfast next morning--at dinner time--at supper--Rebecca Mary
absented herself from the house. Aunt Olivia set on the meals regularly
and waited with tightening heartstrings. It did not seem to occur to her
to eat her own portions. She tasted no morsel of all the dainties she
got together wistfully. At nightfall the second day she began to feel
real alarm. She put on her bonnet and went to the minister's. He was
rather a new minister, and the Plummers had always required a good deal
of time to make acquaintance. But in t