that care once killed a cat, they ordered their
lives with the view of escaping that particular doom, at least, and
succeeded fairly well until Rebecca's advent made existence a trifle
more sensational.

Once a month for years upon years, Miss Miranda and Miss Jane had put
towels over their heads and made a solemn visit to the barn, taking off
the enameled cloth coverings (occasionally called "emmanuel covers" in
Riverboro), dusting the ancient implements, and sometimes sweeping
the heaviest of the cobwebs from the corners, or giving a brush to the
floor.

Deacon Israel's tottering ladder still stood in its accustomed place,
propped against the haymow, and the heavenly stairway leading to eternal
glory scarcely looked fairer to Jacob of old than this to Rebecca. By
means of its dusty rounds she mounted, mounted, mounted far away
from time and care and maiden aunts, far away from childish tasks
and childish troubles, to the barn chamber, a place so full of golden
dreams, happy reveries, and vague longings, that, as her little brown
hands clung to the sides of the ladder and her feet trod the rounds
cautiously in her ascent, her heart almost stopped beating in the sheer
joy of anticipation.

Once having gained the heights, the next thing was to unlatch the heavy
doors and give them a gentle swing outward. Then, oh, ever new Paradise!
Then, oh, ever lovely green and growing world! For Rebecca had that
something in her soul that

"Gives to seas and sunset skies The unspent beauty of surprise."

At the top of Guide Board hill she could see Alice Robinson's barn with
its shining weather vane, a huge burnished fish that swam with the wind
and foretold the day to all Riverboro. The meadow, with its sunny
slopes stretching up to the pine woods, was sometimes a flowing sheet
of shimmering grass, sometimes--when daisies and buttercups were
blooming--a vision of white and gold. Sometimes the shorn stubble would
be dotted with "the happy hills of hay," and a little later the rock
maple on the edge of the pines would stand out like a golden ball
against the green; its neighbor, the sugar maple, glowing beside it,
brave in scarlet.

It was on one of these autumn days with a wintry nip in the air that
Adam Ladd (Rebecca's favorite "Mr. Aladdin"), after searching for her in
field and garden, suddenly noticed the open doors of the barn chamber,
and called to her. At the sound of his vice she dropped her precious
diary, and flew