“Well, well, I must be going. I've made a regular visit. But I tell John when I get away from home, it feels so good I STAY! 'I don't get away any too often,' I says, 'and I guess I've earnt the right.' Well, I must be going if I'm ever going to! Good-bye, Miss Plummer—good-bye, Rebecca Mary. All is, I hope Mis' Avery's boarder'll find her diamond, don't you? But I don't calculate she will. Well, good afternoon. She hadn't ought to have wore the ring, when she knew it was loose in the setting like that. Some folks are just that careless! Well—” But Rebecca Mary did not hear the rest of the Caller's leave-taking. She had slipped away to Thomas Jefferson out in the sun. “Oh, come here—come here with me!” she cried, intensely. “Come out behind the barn where we can talk. I've got to say something to you that's awful! I've GOT to, you've got to listen, Thomas Jefferson.” It was still and terribly hot in the treeless glare behind the barn, but it was all in the day's work to Thomas Jefferson. Behind the barn was a beautiful place for bugs. “Listen! Oh, you poor dear, you've got to listen!” Rebecca Mary cried. “You've got to stop hunting for bugs—and don't you dare to crow! If you crow, Thomas Jefferson, it will break my heart. I don't s'pose you know what you've done—I don't know as you've done it—but there's something awful happened. Oh, Thomas Jefferson, it glittered—I saw it glitter!” Suddenly Rebecca Mary stooped and gathered Thomas Jefferson into her arms. She held him with a passionate clasp against her flat little calico breast. He was HERS. He was all the intimate friend she had ever had. He had been her little downy baby and slept in her hand. She had fed him and watched him grow and been proud of him. He was her all. “Oh, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson, what was it that glittered in the grass? Tell me and I'll believe you. Say it was a little piece o' glass and I'll put you down and go get you some corn, and we'll never speak of it again. But don't look at me like that—don't look at me like that! You look—GUILTY!” She rocked him in her arms. In her soul she knew what it was that had glittered. But in Thomas Jefferson's soul—oh, they could not blame Thomas Jefferson! “You haven't got any soul, poor dear; poor dear, you haven't got any soul, and you can't be guilty without a soul. They couldn't—hang—you.” Her voice sank to the merest whisper. She tightened her clasp on the great, soft body and smoothed the soft feathers with a tender, tremulous little hand. “The Lord didn't put anything in you but a stomach and a—a gizzard. He left your soul out and you're not to blame for that. I don't blame you, Thomas Jefferson, and of course the Lord don't. But Mrs. Avery's boarder—oh, oh, dear, I'm afraid Mrs. Avery's boarder will! You mustn't tell—I mean I mustn't. Nobody must know what it was that glittered in the grass. Do you want to be—searched?