ses. No one,
except possibly their mother, was quite certain how many of them there
were; it was a dizzy process to take their census. They were never
still, in little brown bare limbs nor shrill voices. From sunup to
sundown the Tony Trumbullses raced and laughed. Certainly they were
happy.

The minister's wife had not dared to tell her Caller of the afternoon
that the minister's children were down there shouting and racing with
the little Tony Trumbullses. Dear, no!--not after Rebecca Mary in the
course of conversation had said that Aunt Olivia did not countenance the
Tony Trumbullses. Rebecca Mary did not say "countenance," but it meant
that.

"Her aunt won't let her play with them, Robert. And she'd like to--you
needn't tell me Rebecca Mary wouldn't like to! I saw it in her poor
little solemn eyes. Besides, she said she asked her aunt once to
let her. Robert, aunts are cruel; I never knew it before. They've no
business bringing up little Rebecca Marys!"

"My dear! Felicia!" But in the minister's eyes was agreement.

Aunt Olivia took afternoon naps with punctilious regularity--Aunt Olivia
herself was punctilious regularity. At half past one, day upon day,
she hung out the dish towel, hung up her kitchen apron, and walked with
unswerving course into her bedroom. There, disposed upon the dainty bed
in rigid lines of unrest, she rested. The naps were often long ones.

A little after the afternoon that Rebecca Mary spent at the minister's
the birthday quilt was finished. The thousandth tiny piece was neatly
over-'n'-overed to its gorgeous expanse. But Rebecca Mary was not
content. She longed to make it complete. She wanted to surprise Aunt
'Livia with it, as Aunt 'Livia on that momentous birthday of her own had
surprised her with the little fluff-ball of yellow down that had grown
into Thomas Jefferson. That had been such a beautiful surprise, but
this--Aunt 'Livia had seen the quilt so many, many times! She had taught
Rebecca Mary's stiff little fingers to set the first stitches in it; she
had made her rip out this purple square and that pink-checked one, and
this one and that one and that. Oh, Aunt 'Livia was ACQUAINTED with the
quilt! It would not be much of a surprise.

But Rebecca Mary set her little pointed chin between her little brown
palms and pondered, and out of the pondering grew a plan so ambitious
and so daring that Rebecca Mary gasped in the throes of it. But she
held her ground and entertained it i