't tell; it's all puzzly about heaven, and perhaps she does,"
said Rebecca, as they turned reluctantly from the fascinating scene and
stole down to the piazza.

It was a beautiful and a happy summer that year, and every day it was
filled with blissful plays and still more blissful duties. On the
Monday after Jack-o'-lantern's arrival in Edgewood Rebecca founded the
Riverboro Aunts Association. The Aunts were Rebecca, Emma Jane, Alice
Robinson, and Minnie Smellie, and each of the first three promised
to labor for and amuse the visiting baby for two days a week, Minnie
Smellie, who lived at some distance from the Cobbs, making herself
responsible for Saturday afternoons.

Minnie Smellie was not a general favorite among the Riverboro girls, and
it was only in an unprecedented burst of magnanimity that they admitted
her into the rites of fellowship, Rebecca hugging herself secretly at
the thought, that as Minnie gave only the leisure time of one day a
week, she could not be called a "full" Aunt. There had been long and
bitter feuds between the two children during Rebecca's first summer in
Riverboro, but since Mrs. Smellie had told her daughter that one more
quarrel would invite a punishment so terrible that it could only be
hinted at vaguely, and Miss Miranda Sawyer had remarked that any niece
of hers who couldn't get along peaceable with the neighbors had better
go back to the seclusion of a farm where there weren't any, hostilities
had been veiled, and a suave and diplomatic relationship had replaced
the former one, which had been wholly primitive, direct, and barbaric.
Still, whenever Minnie Smellie, flaxen-haired, pink-nosed, and
ferret-eyed, indulged in fluent conversation, Rebecca, remembering the
old fairy story, could always see toads hopping out of her mouth. It was
really very unpleasant, because Minnie could never see them herself; and
what was more amazing, Emma Jane perceived nothing of the sort, being
almost as blind, too, to the diamonds that fell continually from
Rebecca's lips; but Emma Jane's strong point was not her imagination.

A shaky perambulator was found in Mrs. Perkins's wonderful attic; shoes
and stockings were furnished by Mrs. Robinson; Miss Jane Sawyer knitted
a blanket and some shirts; Thirza Meserve, though too young for an aunt,
coaxed from her mother some dresses and nightgowns, and was presented
with a green paper certificate allowing her to wheel Jacky up and down
the road for an hour u