years, but by certain important
occurrences.

There was the year her father died; the year she left Sunnybrook Farm to
come to her aunts in Riverboro; the year Sister Hannah became engaged;
the year little Mira died; the year Abijah Flagg ceased to be Squire
Bean's chore-boy, and astounded Riverboro by departing for Limerick
Academy in search of an education; and finally the year of her
graduation, which, to the mind of seventeen, seems rather the
culmination than the beginning of existence.

Between these epoch-making events certain other happenings stood out in
bold relief against the gray of dull daily life.

There was the day she first met her friend of friends, "Mr. Aladdin,"
and the later, even more radiant one when he gave her the coral
necklace. There was the day the Simpson family moved away from Riverboro
under a cloud, and she kissed Clara Belle fervently at the cross-roads,
telling her that she would always be faithful. There was the visit of
the Syrian missionaries to the brick house. That was a bright, romantic
memory, as strange and brilliant as the wonderful little birds' wings
and breasts that the strangers brought from the Far East. She remembered
the moment they asked her to choose some for herself, and the rapture
with which she stroked the beautiful things as they lay on the black
haircloth sofa. Then there was the coming of the new minister, for
though many were tried only one was chosen; and finally there was the
flag-raising, a festivity that thrilled Riverboro and Edgewood society
from centre to circumference, a festivity that took place just before
she entered the Female Seminary at Wareham and said good-by to kind Miss
Dearborn and the village school.

There must have been other flag-raisings in history,--even the persons
most interested in this particular one would grudgingly have allowed
that much,--but it would have seemed to them improbable that any such
flag-raising as theirs, either in magnitude of conception or brilliancy
of actual performance, could twice glorify the same century. Of some
pageants it is tacitly admitted that there can be no duplicates, and the
flag-raising at Riverboro Centre was one of these; so that it is small
wonder if Rebecca chose it as one of the important dates in her personal
almanac.

The new minister's wife was the being, under Providence, who had
conceived the germinal idea of the flag.

At this time the parish had almost settled down to the trembli