it was a new experience. It took time
to get used to it, and she sat still a long time, rigid and grim, on the
edge of the chair. Then as suddenly as she had sat down she got up. It
could not be--she refused to entertain the suspicion longer. Rebecca
Mary had NOT gone there to that forbidden place; she was in the garden
somewhere. Aunt Olivia, a little stiff as if from a chill, went once
more in search of the child.

"Rebecca! Rebecca Mary!" she called, at regular intervals. Then sharply,
"Rebecca Mary Plummer!" Her voice had thin cadences of suspicion lurking
in it against its will.

But there seemed really no doubt. One by one incriminating
circumstances occurred to Aunt Olivia. Rebecca Mary had longed to go so
much; the Tony Trumbullses, one at a time or in a tumultuous body, had
urged her so often; she herself had more than once caught the child
gazing wistfully, in passing by, at the bewildering, deafening, frolics
of the little Tony Trumbullses. Once Rebecca Mary had asked to go
barefoot, as they went. Once she had let out the tight little braids
in her neck and rumpled her thin little hair. Once Aunt Olivia had come
upon her PLAYING. The remembrance of it now tightened the lines around
Aunt Olivia's lips. The child had been running wildly about the yard,
shouting in a strange, excited, ridiculous way. When Aunt Olivia in
stern displeasure had demanded explanations, she had run on recklessly,
calling back over her shoulder: "Don't stop me! I'm a Tony Trumbull!"

"My land!" breathed Aunt Olivia, taking back the suspicion to her
breast. "After all my forbidding she's gone down there. She's BEEN going
down there dear knows how long. She's waited till I took my naps an'
then went. A PLUMMER!"

There was really nowhere else she could have gone. She had never wanted
to go anywhere else, except to the minister's, and Rebecca Mary was
punctilious and would not think of going THERE again till the minister's
wife had returned her visit.

But Aunt Olivia waited. As usual, she went to her room next day at nap
time and closed the door behind her. But when a little figure slipped
down the road towards the forbidden place a moment later, she was
watching behind her blinds. She was groaning as if in pain.

The little figure began to run staidly. Aunt Olivia groaned again. The
child was in a hurry to get there--she couldn't wait to walk! There was
guilt in every motion of the little figure.

"And she runs like a Plummer,"