ed the new minister's wife, who, could she have had her
way, would have given all the prominent parts to Rebecca, from Uncle
Sam down.

So, beauty, fashion, and wealth having been tried and found wanting,
the committee discussed the claims of talent, and it transpired that to
the awestricken Rebecca fell the chief plum in the pudding. It was a
tribute to her gifts that there was no jealousy or envy among the other
girls; they readily conceded her special fitness for the role.

Her life had not been pressed down full to the brim of pleasures, and
she had a sort of distrust of joy in the bud. Not until she saw it in
full radiance of bloom did she dare embrace it. She had never read any
verse but Byron, Felicia Hemans, bits of "Paradise Lost," and the
selections in the school readers, but she would have agreed heartily
with the poet who said:--

"Not by appointment do we meet delight
And joy; they heed not our expectancy;
But round some corner in the streets of life
They on a sudden clasp us with a smile."

For many nights before the raising, when she went to her bed, she said
to herself after she had finished her prayers: "It can't be true that
I'm chosen for the State of Maine! It just can't be true! Nobody could
be good enough, but oh, I'll try to be as good as I can! To be going to
Wareham Seminary next week and to be the State of Maine too! Oh! I must
pray hard to God to keep me meek and humble!"

The flag was to be raised on a Tuesday, and on the previous Sunday it
became known to the children that Clara Belle Simpson was coming back
from Acreville, coming to live with Mrs. Fogg and take care of the
baby. Clara Belle was one of Miss Dearborn's original flock, and if she
were left wholly out of the festivities she would be the only girl of
suitable age to be thus slighted; it seemed clear to the juvenile mind,
therefore, that neither she nor her descendants would ever recover from
such a blow. But, under all the circumstances, would she be allowed to
join in the procession? Even Rebecca, the optimistic, feared not, and
the committee confirmed her fears by saying that Abner Simpson's
daughter certainly could not take any prominent part in the ceremony,
but that they hoped Mrs. Fogg would allow her to witness it.

When Abner Simpson, urged by the town authorities, took his wife and
seven children away from Riverboro to Acreville, just over the border
in the next county, Riverboro went to bed leaving its