suspicions awoke. They had been long in rousing, but, once alert,
they developed rapidly into certainties. Her pale eyes glistened,
her thin nostrils dilated--Aunt Olivia's whole lean, sharp,
unemotional person put on suspicion. The child had gone to see
the Tony Trumbullses.

"My land!" ejaculated Aunt Olivia, "after all my forbidding! And she
a Plummer!" She sat down suddenly as though a little faint. She had never known a Plummer to disobey before; it was a new experience.
It took time to get used to it, and she sat still a long time, rigid
and grim, on the edge of the chair. Then as suddenly as she had sat
down she got up. It could not be--she refused to entertain the
suspicion longer. Rebecca Mary had NOT gone there to that forbidden
place; she was in the garden somewhere. Aunt Olivia, a little stiff
as if from a chill, went once more in search of the child.

"Rebecca! Rebecca Mary!" she called, at regular intervals.
Then sharply, "Rebecca Mary Plummer!" Her voice had thin cadences
of suspicion lurking in it against its will.

But there seemed really no doubt. One by one incriminating circum-
stances occurred to Aunt Olivia. Rebecca Mary had longed to go so
much; the Tony Trumbullses, one at a time or in a tumultuous body,
had urged her so often; she herself had more than once caught the
child gazing wistfully, in passing by, at the bewildering, deafening,
frolics of the little Tony Trumbullses. Once Rebecca Mary had asked
to go barefoot, as they went. Once she had let out the tight little
braids in her neck and rumpled her thin little hair. Once Aunt Olivia
had come upon her PLAYING. The remembrance of it now tightened the
lines around Aunt Olivia's lips. The child had been running wildly
about the yard, shouting in a strange, excited, ridiculous way.