It would be false to say that one could ever be alone when one has one's lovely thoughts to comfort one. One sits by one's self, it is true, but one thinks; one opens one's favorite book and reads one's favorite story; one speaks to one's aunt or one's brother, fondles one's cat, or looks at one's photograph album. There is one's work also: what a joy it is to one, if one happens to like work. All one's little household tasks keep one from being lonely. Does one ever feel bereft when one picks up one's chips to light one's fire for one's evening meal? Or when one washes one's milk pail before milking one's cow? One would fancy not. R. R. R. "It is perfectly dreadful," sighed Rebecca when she read it aloud after school. "Putting in 'one' all the time doesn't make it sound any more like a book, and it looks silly besides." "You say such queer things," objected Miss Dearborn. "I don't see what makes you do it. Why did you put in anything so common as picking up chips?" "Because I was talking about 'household tasks' in the sentence before, and it IS one of my household tasks. Don't you think calling supper 'one's evening meal' is pretty? and isn't 'bereft' a nice word?" "Yes, that part of it does very well. It is the cat, the chips, and the milk pail that I don't like." "All right!" sighed Rebecca. "Out they go; Does the cow go too?" "Yes, I don't like a cow in a composition," said the difficult Miss Dearborn. The Milltown trip had not been without its tragic consequences of a small sort; for the next week Minnie Smellie's mother told Miranda Sawyer that she'd better look after Rebecca, for she was given to "swearing and profane language;" that she had been heard saying something dreadful that very afternoon, saying it before Emma Jane and Living Perkins, who only laughed and got down on all fours and chased her. Rebecca, on being confronted and charged with the crime, denied it indignantly, and aunt Jane believed her. "Search your memory, Rebecca, and try to think what Minnie overheard you say," she pleaded. "Don't be ugly and obstinate, but think real hard. When did they chase you up the road, and what were you doing?" A sudden light broke upon Rebecca's darkness.