Aunt Olivia, apparently oblivious to what was going on, yet saw and
did not disapprove. It was to be expected that the child should come into her inheritance sometime, early or late. If early--well.

"It's the Plummer in her. All the Plummers have kept diaries," Aunt
Olivia mused, knitting stolidly on while the child stooped painfully
to her self-imposed task. The quaint resemblance to herself at her
own diary-writing did not escape her, and she smiled a little in the
Aunt Olivia way that scarcely stirred her lips. Aunt Olivia smiled
oftener now when she looked at the child. She was "failing" a little,
Plummerly. Between the two of them, little Plummer and big, stretched
of late a tie woven of sheets and a gorgeous quilt of a thousand bits.
It was not very visible to the naked eye, but they were both rather
shyly conscious that it was there. They would never be quite so far
apart again.

Rebecca Mary took her diary out to the haunts of Thomas Jefferson and
read aloud selections to him, with an odd, conscious little air, as
though she were graduating. The great white fellow was a sympathetic
auditor, if silence and extreme gravity count. Only once did he ever
make comments, and Rebecca Mary could never quite make up her mind
whether he laughed then or applauded. When a great white rooster
elongates his neck, crooks it ridiculously, flaps his wings and crows,
it's hard telling exactly what feeling prompts him. But Rebecca
reasoned from past experience and her faith in him--he had never
laughed at her before. It was applause. The especial entry which
evoked it was the one that first mentioned an allowance.

"'THURSDAY.--I think I'm going to--'" read Rebecca Mary slowly; and it
was significant that on this Thursday there was no weather. "'I havent