At six o'clock that evening Rebecca and Emma Jane flew up the
hill and down the lane again, waving their hands to the dear old
couple who were waiting for them in the usual place, the back
piazza where they had sat so many summers in a blessed
companionship never marred by an unloving word.

"Where's Jacky?" called Rebecca breathlessly, her voice always
outrunning her feet.

"Go up to my chamber, both of you, if you want to see," smiled
Mrs. Cobb, "only don't wake him up."

The girls went softly up the stairs into Aunt Sarah's room.
There, in the turn-up bedstead that had been so long empty, slept
Jack-o'-lantern, in blissful unconsciousness of the doom he had
so lately escaped. His nightgown and pillow case were clean and
fragrant with lavender, but they were both as yellow as saffron,
for they had belonged to Sarah Ellen.

"I wish his mother could see him!" whispered Emma Jane.

"You can't tell; it's all puzzly about heaven, and perhaps she
does," said Rebecca, as they turned reluctantly from the
fascinating scene and stole down to the piazza.

It was a beautiful and a happy summer that year, and every day it
was filled with blissful plays and still more blissful duties. On
the Monday after Jack-o'-lantern's arrival in Edgewood Rebecca
founded the Riverboro Aunts Association. The Aunts were Rebecca,
Emma Jane, Alice Robinson, and Minnie Smellie, and each of the