Jane Lavinia, with her head on the window sill, looked out
into the sunset splendour and dreamed.

Athwart her dreams, rending in twain their frail, rose-tinted fabric,
came Aunt Rebecca's voice from the kitchen below, "Jane Lavinia! Jane
Lavinia! Ain't you going for the cows tonight?"

Jane Lavinia started up guiltily; she had forgotten all about the
cows. She slipped off her muslin dress and hurried into her print; but
with all her haste it took time, and Aunt Rebecca was grimmer than
ever when Jane Lavinia ran downstairs.

"It'll be dark before we get the cows milked. I s'pose you've been
day-dreaming again up there. I do wish, Jane Lavinia, that you had
more sense."

Jane Lavinia made no response. At any other time she would have gone
out with a lump in her throat; but now, after what Mr. Stephens had
said, Aunt Rebecca's words had no power to hurt her.

"After milking I'll ask her about it," she said to herself, as she
went blithely down the sloping yard, across the little mossy bridge
over the brook, and up the lane on the hill beyond, where the ferns
grew thickly and the grass was beset with tiny blue-eyes like purple
stars. The air was moist and sweet. At the top of the lane a wild plum
tree hung out its branches of feathery bloom against the crimson sky.
Jane Lavinia lingered, in spite of Aunt Rebecca's hurry, to look at
it. It satisfied her artistic instinct and made her glad to be alive
in the world where wild plums blossomed against springtime skies. The
pleasure of it went with her through the pasture and back to the
milking yard; and stayed with her while she helped Aunt Rebecca milk
the cows.

When the milk was strained into the creamers down at the spring, and
the pails washed and set in a shining row on their bench, Jane Lavinia
tried to summon up her courage to speak to Aunt Rebecca. They were out
on the back verandah; the spring twilight was purpling down over the
woods and fields; down in the swamp the frogs were singing a silvery,
haunting chorus; a little baby moon was floating in the clear sky
above the white-blossoming orchard on the slope.

Jane Lavinia tried to speak and couldn't. For a wonder, Aunt Rebecca
spared her the trouble.

"Well, what did Mr. Stephens think of your pictures?" she asked
shortly.

"Oh!" Everything that Jane Lavinia wanted to say came rushing at once
and together to her tongue's end. "Oh, Aunt Rebecca, he was delighted
with them! And he said I had remarkable