satisfied!"

"It had to be done," calm Duty responded. "If you think it will
make you feel any better, you can send yourself to bed."

"I'm going to," sighed Aunt Olivia, slipping away to her room.
A strange little yearning was upon her to hunt up Rebecca Mary and
call her darling and dear. But in her heart she knew she should
not have the courage to do it. Here was another Plummer coward!

"Why are some people made like me?" she thought--"so it kills 'em to
say anything anyways tenderish. Seems to be too much for their vocal
organs--they'd rather do a week's washing!"

Other thoughts came to Aunt Olivia as she lay on her bed, doing her
whimsical penance for violating the sanctity of the little old
cookbook. She was not comfortable. It was a hard bed--nothing was
soft of Aunt Olivia's. She moved about on it uneasily.

"When they're dead, we're willing enough to say tenderish things to
'em," her musings ran. "We wish we HAD then. I suppose if Rebecca
Mary was--"

She got no farther for the sudden horror that was upon her--that sent
her to her feet and to the door. But there she stopped in the blessed
relief that drifted in to her on a child's laugh. Somewhere out there
Rebecca Mary was laughing in her subdued, sweet way. A cracked, shrill
crow followed--Thomas Jefferson was laughing too.

Rebecca Mary was not dead. There was time to say a "tenderish"