PEOPLE; but only, once in a long while, with things; like
those,-- cover them up quick before I begin again! I'm all right!
Shower's over, sun's out!"

Miss Miranda looked at her searchingly and uncomprehendingly.
Rebecca's state of mind came perilously near to disease, she
thought.

"Have you seen me buyin' any new bunnits, or your Aunt Jane?" she
asked cuttingly. "Is there any particular reason why you should
dress better than your elders? You might as well know that we're
short of cash just now, your Aunt Jane and me, and have no
intention of riggin' you out like a Milltown fact'ry girl."

"Oh-h!" cried Rebecca, the quick tears starting again to her eyes
and the color fading out of her cheeks, as she scrambled up from
her knees to a seat on the sofa beside her aunt. "Oh-h! How
ashamed I am! Quick, sew those quills on to the brown turban
while I'm good! If I can't stand them I'll make a neat little
gingham bag and slip over them!"

And so the matter ended, not as it customarily did, with cold
words on Miss Miranda's part and bitter feelings on Rebecca's,
but with a gleam of mutual understanding.

Mrs. Cobb, who was a master hand at coloring, dipped the
offending quills in brown dye and left them to soak in it all
night, not only making them a nice warm color, but somewhat
weakening their rocky spines, so that they were not quite as
rampantly hideous as before, in Rebecca's opinion.