seemingly so long ago, when she sat on the box seat for the first time,
her legs dangling in the air, too short to reach the footboard. She
could smell the big bouquet of lilacs, see the pink-flounced parasol,
feel the stiffness of the starched buff calico and the hated prick of
the black and yellow porcupine quills. The drive was taken almost in
silence, but it was a sweet, comforting silence both to uncle Jerry and
the girl.

Then came the sight of Abijah Flagg shelling beans in the barn, and
then the Perkins attic windows with a white cloth fluttering from them.
She could spell Emma Jane's loving thought and welcome in that little
waving flag; a word and a message sent to her just at the first moment
when Riverboro chimneys rose into view; something to warm her heart
till they could meet.

The brick house came next, looking just as of yore; though it seemed to
Rebecca as if death should have cast some mysterious spell over it.
There were the rolling meadows, the stately elms, all yellow and brown
now; the glowing maples, the garden-beds bright with asters, and the
hollyhocks, rising tall against the parlor windows; only in place of
the cheerful pinks and reds of the nodding stalks, with their gay
rosettes of bloom, was a crape scarf holding the blinds together, and
another on the sitting-room side, and another on the brass knocker of
the brown-painted door.

"Stop, uncle Jerry! Don't turn in at the side; hand me my satchel,
please; drop me in the road and let me run up the path by myself. Then
drive away quickly."

At the noise and rumble of the approaching stage the house door opened
from within, just as Rebecca closed the gate behind her. Aunt Jane came
down the stone steps, a changed woman, frail and broken and white.
Rebecca held out her arms and the old aunt crept into them feebly, as
she did on that day when she opened the grave of her buried love and
showed the dead face, just for an instant, to a child. Warmth and
strength and life flowed into the aged frame from the young one.

"Rebecca," she said, raising her head, "before you go in to look at
her, do you feel any bitterness over anything she ever said to you?"

Rebecca's eyes blazed reproach, almost anger, as she said chokingly:
"Oh, aunt Jane! Could you believe it of me? I am going in with a heart
brimful of gratitude!"

"She was a good woman, Rebecca; she had a quick temper and a sharp
tongue, but she wanted to do right, and she did it as near as