"Of course!" Aunt Olivia interposed, rather crisply. "You couldn't
expect her to get over it all in a minute. He was a remarkable
rooster."

"She misses him, herself," inwardly smiled the minister's little wife.
Whether by virtue of her relationship to the minister or by her own
virtue, she had learned to read human nature with a degree of accuracy.

"I looked at myself in the glass tonight," confessed Rebecca Mary's
diary, "but it was on acount of the rufles. I think Ime not quite so
homebly in rufles. I think Aunt Olivia was kind to rufle me. I should
like to ware this night gown in the day time. I wish folks did."

The pencil slipped out of Rebecca Mary's fingers and rolled on the
floor, to the undoing of the little, white cat, who had gone to bed in
his basket. Rebecca Mary caught him up as he darted after the pencil,
and hugged him in an odd little ecstasy. She felt oddly happy.

"You little, white cat!" she cried, muffledly, her face in his thick
coat, "you've waited and waited, but I think I'm going to love you now
--you needn't wait any more."




The Feel Doll



The minister uttered a suppressed note of warning as solid little