ve ben thinkin' it's awful mean not
to give you a chance to go back to 1876, Rebecca. Joe Chandler's a
mighty fine man!"

Rebecca gave vent to an unintelligible murmur and turned to Phoebe's
bed. She grasped the mattress and gave it a vicious shake as she turned
it over. She was probably only transferring to this inoffensive article
a process which she would gladly have applied elsewhere.

There was a long silence while Rebecca resentfully drew the sheets into
proper position, smoothed them with swift pats and caressings, and
tucked them neatly under at head and sides. Then came a soft, apologetic
voice.

"Rebecca!"

The spinster made no reply but applied herself to a mathematically
accurate adjustment of the top edge of the upper sheet.

"Rebecca!"

The second call was a little louder than the first, and there was a
queer half-sobbing, half-laughing catch in the speaker's voice that
commanded attention.

Rebecca looked up.

Phoebe was still sitting on the floor beside her trunk, but the trunk
was open now and the young woman's rosy face was peering with a
pathetic smile over a--what!--could it be!

Rebecca leaned forward in amazement.

Yes, it was! In Phoebe's outstretched hands was the dearest possible
little baby's undergarment--all of cambric, with narrow ribbons at the
neck.

For a few seconds the two sisters looked at each other over this
unexpected barrier. Then Phoebe's lips quivered into a pathetic curve
and she buried her face in the little garment, laughing and crying at
once.

Rebecca dropped helplessly into a chair.

"Phoebe Martin Wise!" she exclaimed. "Do you mean--hev you
brought----?"

She fell silent, and then, darting at her sister, she took her head in
her hands and deposited a sudden kiss on the smooth bright gold-brown
hair and whisked out of Phoebe's room and into her own.

In the meantime Copernicus was too deeply absorbed in his calculations
to notice these comings and goings. Apparently he had been led into the
most abstruse mathematical regions. Nothing short of the triple
integration of transcendental functions should have been adequate to
produce those lines of anxious care in his face as he slowly covered
sheet after sheet with figures.

He was at length startled from his preoccupation by a gentle voice at
his side.

"Can't I help, Mr. Droop?"

It was Phoebe, who, having made all right in her room and washed all
traces of tears from her face, had come to note Droo