Rebecca Mary rose slowly to her reluctant little feet, and with the heavy sheet across her arm went to meet the sharp voice. At last the Time had come. “Well?” Aunt Olivia was waiting for her answer. Rebecca Mary groaned. Aunt Olivia would not think it was “well.” “Well, Rebecca Mary Plummer, you came to fetch my answer, did you? You got your stent 'most done?” Aunt Olivia's hands were extended for the folded sheet. “I've got it DONE, Aunt 'Livia,” answered little Rebecca Mary, steadily. Her slender figure, in its quaint, scant dress, looked braced as if to meet a shock. But Rebecca Mary was terribly afraid. “Every mite o' that seam? Then I guess you can't have done it very well; that's what I guess! If it ain't done well, you'll have to take it—” “Wait—please, won't you wait, Aunt 'Livia? I've got to say something. I mean, I've got all the over-'n'-overing I'm ever going to do done. THAT'S what's done. The hundred-and-oneth stitch was my stent, and it's done. I'm not ever going to take the hundred and twoth. I've decided.” Understanding filtered drop by drop into Aunt Olivia's bewildered brain. She gasped at the final drop. “Not ever going to take another stitch?” she repeated, with a calmness that was awfuler than storm. “No'm.” “You've decided?” “Yes'm.” “May I ask when this—this state of mind began?” Rebecca Mary girded herself afresh. She had such need of recruiting strength. “It's been coming on,” she said. “I've felt it. I knew all the time it was a-coming—and then it came.” It seemed to be all there. Why must she say any more? But still Aunt Olivia waited, and Rebecca Mary read grim displeasure in capitals across the gray field of her face. The little figure stiffened more and more. “I've over-'n'-overed 'leven sheets,” the steady little voice went on, because Aunt Olivia was waiting, and it must, “and you said I did 'em pretty well. I tried to. I was going to do the other one well, till you said there was going to be another dozen. I couldn't BEAR another dozen, Aunt Olivia, so I decided to stop. When Thomas Jefferson crowed I sewed the hundred-and-oneth stitch. That's all there's ever a-going to be.” Rebecca Mary stepped back a step or two, as if finishing a speech and retiring from her audience. There was even the effect of a bow in the sudden collapse of the stiff little body. It was Aunt Olivia's turn now to respond—and Aunt Olivia responded: “You've had your say; now I'll have mine. Listen to me, Rebecca Mary Plummer! Here's this sheet, and here's this needle in it. When you get good and ready you can go on sewing. You won't have anything to eat till you do. I've got through.” The grim figure swept right-about face and tramped into the house as though to the battle-roll of drums. Rebecca Mary stayed behind, face to face with her fate.