, baby! Take
your thumb out of your mouth and come to ride with Becky in your
go-cart." She stretched out her strong young arms to the crowing baby,
sat down in a chair with the child, turned her upside down
unceremoniously, took from her waistband and scornfully flung away a
crooked pin, walked with her (still in a highly reversed position) to
the bureau, selected a large safety pin, and proceeded to attach her
brief red flannel petticoat to a sort of shirt that she wore. Whether
flat on her stomach, or head down, heels in the air, the Simpson baby
knew she was in the hands of an expert, and continued gurgling placidly
while aunt Jane regarded the pantomime with a kind of dazed awe.

"Bless my soul, Rebecca," she ejaculated, "it beats all how handy you
are with babies!"

"I ought to be; I've brought up three and a half of 'em," Rebecca
responded cheerfully, pulling up the infant Simpson's stockings.

"I should think you'd be fonder of dolls than you are," said Jane.

"I do like them, but there's never any change in a doll; it's always
the same everlasting old doll, and you have to make believe it's cross
or sick, or it loves you, or can't bear you. Babies are more trouble,
but nicer."

Miss Jane stretched out a thin hand with a slender, worn band of gold
on the finger, and the baby curled her dimpled fingers round it and
held it fast.

"You wear a ring on your engagement finger, don't you, aunt Jane? Did
you ever think about getting married?"

"Yes, dear, long ago."

"What happened, aunt Jane?"

"He died--just before."

"Oh!" And Rebecca's eyes grew misty.

"He was a soldier and he died of a gunshot wound, in a hospital, down
South."

"Oh! aunt Jane!" softly. "Away from you?"

"No, I was with him."

"Was he young?"

"Yes; young and brave and handsome, Rebecca; he was Mr. Carter's
brother Tom."

"Oh! I'm so glad you were with him! Wasn't he glad, aunt Jane?"

Jane looked back across the half-forgotten years, and the vision of
Tom's gladness flashed upon her: his haggard smile, the tears in his
tired eyes, his outstretched arms, his weak voice saying, "Oh, Jenny!
Dear Jenny! I've wanted you so, Jenny!" It was too much! She had never
breathed a word of it before to a human creature, for there was no one
who would have understood. Now, in a shamefaced way, to hide her
brimming eyes, she put her head down on the young shoulder beside her,
saying, "It was hard, Rebecca!"

The Simpson baby had cuddle