"I can't think why anybody named Meserve should have called a
baby Thirza," said Rebecca, somewhat out of order, though the
meeting was carried on with small recognition of parliamentary
laws. "It always makes me want to say:

Thirza Meserver
Heaven preserve her!
Thirza Meserver
Do we deserve her?

She's little, but she's sweet, and absolutely without guile. I
think we ought to have her."

"Is 'guile' the same as 'guilt?" inquired Emma Jane Perkins.

"Yes," the president answered; "exactly the same, except one is
written and the other spoken language." (Rebecca was rather good
at imbibing information, and a master hand at imparting it!)
"Written language is for poems and graduations and occasions like
this--kind of like a best Sunday-go-to-meeting dress that you
wouldn't like to go blueberrying in for fear of getting it
spotted."

"I'd just as 'lieves get 'guile' spotted as not," affirmed the
unimaginative Emma Jane. "I think it's an awful foolish word; but
now we're all named and our officers elected, what do we do
first? It's easy enough for Mary and Martha Burch; they just play
at missionarying because their folks work at it, same as Living
and I used to make believe be blacksmiths when we were little."