The same words over and over--growing perhaps a little softer and
tenderer. Rebecca Mary's arm was crooked as though a little
flaxen head lay in the bend of it. Rebecca Mary's brooding little
face was gazing downward intently at her empty arm. Quite
suddenly it came upon Aunt Olivia that she had seen the child
rocking like this before--that she must have seen her often.

"Rebecca Mary 'n' the angels
Are watching o'er,"

sang on the crooning little voice in Aunt Olivia's ears.

The doll in its coffin upstairs; down here Rebecca Mary rocking
her empty arms. The two thoughts flashed into Aunt Olivia's mind
and welded into one. All her vacillations and Duty's sharp
reminders occurred to her clearly. She had thought that at last
she was proof against temptation, but she had not thought of
this. She was not prepared for Rebecca Mary, here in her little
rocking chair, rocking her little soul-doll to sleep.

The angels were used to watching o'er, but Aunt Olivia could not
bear it. She went away with a strange, unaccustomed ache in her
throat. The minister's wife would not have wanted her arrested
then.

Aunt Olivia tiptoed away as though Rebecca Mary had said, "'Sh!"
She was remembering, as she went, the brief, sweet moment when
she had sat like that and rocked, with the doll the minister's
wife dressed, in her arms. It seemed to establish a new link of
kinship between her and Rebecca Mary.