“Guilty,” pleaded the minister. “What else could I do?” “You could have offered to teach her yourself”—with prompt inspiration. “Oh, Robert, why didn't you?” “Felicia!—my dear!”—for the minister was modest. “You know plenty for two Rebecca Marys,” she triumphed. “Didn't you appropriate all the honors at college, you selfish boy!” “It's too late now, dear.” But the minister's eyes thanked her, and the big clasp of his arms. A minister may be mortal. “Maybe it is and maybe it isn't,” spoke the minister's wife, in riddles. “We'll wait and see.” “But, Felicia—but, dear, they're both them Plummers.” “Maybe they are and maybe they aren't,” laughed she. That night Aunt Olivia told Rebecca Mary—after she went to bed, quite calmly: “Rebecca Mary, how would you like to go away to school? For I'm going to send you, my dear.” “'Away—to school—my dear!'” echoed Rebecca Mary, sitting upright in bed. Her slight figure stretched up rigid and preternaturally tall in the dim light. “Yes; the minister advises it—I left it to him. He thinks you ought to have advantages.” Aunt Olivia slipped down suddenly beside the little rigid figure and touched it rather timidly. She felt a little in awe of the Rebecca Mary who knew more than her teacher did. “They all seem to think you're—smart, my dear,” Aunt Olivia said, and she would scarcely have believed it could be so hard to say it. For the life of her she could not keep the pride from pricking through her tone. The wild temptation to sell her Plummer birthright for a kiss assailed her. But she groped in the dimness for Duty's cool touch and found it. In the Plummer code of laws it was writ, “Thou shalt not kiss.” “I'm going right to work to make you some new nightgowns,” Aunt Olivia added, hastily. “I think I shall make them plain,” for it was in the nature of a reinforcement to her courage to leave off the ruffles. Rebecca Mary's eyes shone like stars in the dark little room. The child thought she was glad to be going away to school. “Shall I study algebra and Latin?” she demanded. “I suppose so—that'll be what you go for.” “And French—not FRENCH?” “Likely.” Rebecca Mary fell back on the pillows to grasp it. But she was presently up again. “And that thing that tells about the air and—and gassy things? And the one that tells about your bones?” Aunt Olivia did not recognize chemistry, but she knew bones. She sighed gently. “Oh yes; I suppose you'll find out just how you're put together, and likely it'll scare you so you won't ever dare to breathe deep again. Maybe learning like that is important—I suppose the minister knows.” “The minister knows everything,” Rebecca Mary said, solemnly. “If you let me go away to school, I'll try to learn to know as much as he does, Aunt Olivia. You don't—you don't think he'd mind, do you?” In the dark Aunt Olivia smiled. The small person there on the pillows was, after all, a child. Rebecca Mary had not grown up, after all!