“Why don't you eat something?” “Because you don't. I'm waiting for you to.” “Shan't you ever?” “Not if you don't.” Rebecca Mary caught her breath in a sob. “Shall I be—to blame?” She was moving towards the door now. With an irresistible impulse Aunt Olivia gathered her in her arms, and covered her lean little face with kisses. “You poor little thing! You poor little thing! You poor little thing!” over and over. Rebecca Mary gazed up into the softened face and read something there. It took her breath away. She could not believe it without further proof. “You don't—I don't suppose you LOVE me?” panted Rebecca Mary. But Aunt Olivia was gone out of the room in a swirl of white nightgown. “Everything's on the table,” she called back from the stairs. “I'm going to light a fire. You come right down. I think it's high time—” her voice trailing out thinly. “She does,” murmured Rebecca Mary, radiant of face. At half past twelve o'clock they both ate supper, both in their scant, white nightgowns, both very hungry indeed. But before she sat down in her old place at the table, Rebecca Mary went round to Aunt Olivia's place and whispered something rather shyly in her ear. She had been by herself in a corner of the room for a moment. “I've sewed the hundred and twoth,” Rebecca Mary whispered. The Thousand Quilt “Good afternoon,” Rebecca Mary said, politely. The minister's wife was cutting little trousers out of big ones—the minister's big ones. It was the old puzzle of how to steer clear of the thin places. “Boys grow so!” sighed, tenderly, the minister's wife, over her work. She had not heard the voice from the doorway. “Good afternoon”—again. It was a quaint little figure in tight red calico standing there. It might easily have stepped down from some old picture on the wall. Rebecca Mary had a bundle in her arms. It was so large that it obscured breast and face, and only a pair of grave blue eyes, presided over by thin, light brows, seemed visible to the minister's wife. The trousers puzzle merged into this one. Now who could— “Oh! Oh, it's Miss Plummer's little girl Rebecca,” she said, cordially. “Rebecca Mary her NIECE,” came, a little muffled, from behind the great bundle. “Rebecca Mary's niece—— Oh, you mean Miss Plummer's niece, and your whole name is that! But I suppose she calls you Rebecca or Becky, for short? Walk in, Rebecca.” But Rebecca Mary was struggling with the paralyzing vision of Aunt Olivia calling her Becky. She had passed by the lesser wonder of being called Rebecca without the Mary. “Oh no'm, indeed; Aunt 'Livia never shortens me,” gently gasped the child. And the minister's wife, measuring from the bundle down, smiled to herself. There did not seem much room for shortening. “But walk in, dear—you're going to walk in? I hope you have come to make me a little call?” Rebecca Mary struggled out of her paralysis. Here was occasion for new embarrassment. For Rebecca Mary was honest.