"Don't make me smile, Robert. I'm trying to make you cry. If
Rebecca Mary were sixty instead of eleven I should dress her a
doll."

"Then why not one for Miss Olivia?"

"I may dress her one," undauntedly, "if I find out she never had
one in her life."

"She never did." The minister's voice was positive. "And for that
reason, dear, aren't you afraid she would not approve of Rebecca
Mary's having one? Isn't it rather a delicate mat--"

"Don't, Robert, don't discourage me. It's going to be such a
beautiful doll! And you needn't tell me that poor little eleven-
year-old woman-child won't hold out her empty arms for it. Robert, you're a minister; would it be wrong to give it to her STRAIGHT?"

"Straight, dear?"

"Yes; without saying anything to her aunt Olivia. Tell me.
Rhoda's gone. Say it as--as liberally as you can."

The minister for answer swept doll, petticoat, and minister's
wife into his arms, and kissed them all impartially.

"Think if it were Rhoda," she pleaded.

"And you were 'Aunt Olivia'? You ask me to think such hard
things, dear! If I could stop being a minister long enough--"