her wear ugly things like pigs'
bristles and porcupine quills!"

With this lengthy tirade Rebecca vanished like a meteor, through the
door and down the street, while Miranda Sawyer gasped for breath, and
prayed to Heaven to help her understand such human whirlwinds as this
Randall niece of hers.

This was at three o'clock, and at half-past three Rebecca was kneeling
on the rag carpet with her head in her aunt's apron, sobbing her
contrition.

"Oh! Aunt Miranda, do forgive me if you can. It's the only time I've
been bad for months! You know it is! You know you said last week I
hadn't been any trouble lately. Something broke inside of me and came
tumbling out of my mouth in ugly words! The porcupine quills make me
feel just as a bull does when he sees a red cloth; nobody understands
how I suffer with them!"

Miranda Sawyer had learned a few lessons in the last two years, lessons
which were making her (at least on her "good days") a trifle kinder, and
at any rate a juster woman than she used to be. When she alighted on the
wrong side of her four-poster in the morning, or felt an extra touch of
rheumatism, she was still grim and unyielding; but sometimes a curious
sort of melting process seemed to go on within her, when her whole bony
structure softened, and her eyes grew less vitreous. At such moments
Rebecca used to feel as if a superincumbent iron pot had been lifted off
her head, allowing her to breath freely and enjoy the sunshine.

"Well," she said finally, after staring first at Rebecca and then at the
porcupine quills, as if to gain some insight into the situation, "well,
I never, sence I was born int' the world, heerd such a speech as you've
spoke, an' I guess there probably never was one. You'd better tell the
minister what you said and see what he thinks of his prize Sunday-school
scholar. But I'm too old and tired to scold and fuss, and try to train
you same as I did at first. You can punish yourself this time, like
you used to. Go fire something down the well, same as you did your pink
parasol! You've apologized and we won't say no more about it today, but
I expect you to show by extry good conduct how sorry you be! You care
altogether too much about your looks and your clothes for a child, and
you've got a temper that'll certainly land you in state's prison some o'
these days!"

Rebecca wiped her eyes and laughed aloud. "No, no, Aunt Miranda, it
won't, really! That wasn't temper; I don't get angry with