e was hurrying toward the common. She was
almost running in her haste, for she was late and the Shakespeare class
was a momentous institution.

"Oh, say, Cousin Phoebe," was the man's greeting, "can you tell me ef
yer sister's to home?"

The young girl came to a sudden full stop in her surprise. This cousinly
greeting from the village reprobate was as exciting and as inexplicable
as it was unheard of.

"Why, Mr. Droop!" she exclaimed, "I--I--I s'pose so."

The truth was the truth, after all. But it was hard on Rebecca. What
_could_ this man want with her sister?

Droop nodded and passed on.

"Thank ye. Don't stop fer me," he said.

Phoebe moved forward slowly, watching Copernicus over her shoulder.
She noted his steady steps and pale face and, reassured, resumed her
flying progress with redoubled vigor. After all, Rebecca was forty-two
years old and well able to take care of herself.

Meanwhile, Rebecca Wise, having carefully wrung out her dishcloth,
poured out the water and swept the little sink, was slowly untying her
kitchen apron, full of a thankful sense of the quiet hour before her
wherein to knit and muse beside the front window of her little parlor.

In the centre of this room there stood a wide, round table, bearing a
large kerosene-lamp and the week's mending. At the back and opposite the
two windows stood the well-blacked, shiny, air-tight stove. Above this
was a wooden mantel, painted to imitate marble, whereon were deposited
two photographs, four curious Chinese shells, and a plaster cross to
which there clung a very plaster young woman in scant attire, the whole
being marked "Rock of Ages" in gilt letters at the base.

Horse-hair furniture in all the glory of endless "tidies" was arranged
against walls bedight with a rainbow-like wilderness of morning-glories.
The ceiling was of white plaster, and the floor was painted white and
decked here and there with knitted rag-carpets, on whose Joseph's-coated
surfaces Rebecca loved to gaze when in retrospective mood. In those
humble floor-coverings her knowing eyes recognized her first clocked
stockings and Phoebe's baby cloak. There was her brother Robert's wool
tippet embalmed in loving loops with the remnants of his wife's best
Sunday-go-to-meetin' ribbons. These two had long been dead, but their
sister's loving eyes recreated them in rag-carpet dreams wherein she
lived again those by-gone days.

Rebecca had just seated herself and was unrolling her