"Of course! Or what has all this to do with our quilt? Miss Dearborn just loved the idea of its being a quilt of happiness. She kissed me lots of times, and then she got up and looked in the glass and twirled herself round and held up her skirt and danced, and she had on the dress we like best--the pink delaine with the moss rosebuds on it--and she said, thinking it out as she went along: 'Rebecca, I've had so much happiness to-day I must give part of it away! When Mr. Hunt asked me to marry him this afternoon, I had on this dress. The waist is nearly worn out, but the skirt is as good as new. It's got six breadths in it, and it'll make a beautiful lining for Miss Roxy's quilt!' Then I said: 'Oh, that'll be lovely if you can spare it; but, darling Miss Dearborn--excuse me for speaking of it--they say that long ago a gentleman from Boston played with Miss Roxy's feelings and that's partly the reason she's so unhappy, and oughtn't you to be perfectly sure that Mr. Hunt isn't playing with yours before you give away any clothes?" "That was very thoughtful of you, Rebecca," commented Persis approvingly. "And what did she say?" "Oh! She fell into her rocking-chair and laughed and laughed till the tears rolled down her cheeks. Then she stood up and took the dress right off her back and kissed the waist of it and--" Emma Jane's china-blue eyes were popping out of her head. Her mind was hurrying to keep up with Rebecca's tale, but it seemed half a league behind as she ejaculated: "Kissed her waist? Wha' for?" Rebecca looked embarrassed, both at the interruption at the high-water mark of her story and at the lack of comprehension. Also, it was a difficult action to explain in words; one whose meaning was to be felt with a blush and a heartbeat, but not dragged into the open and enlarged upon in bald speech. "Just think it over, Emma Jane, for I can't talk about it," she said. "If you'd only read 'Ivanhoe,' as I wanted you to, or even 'Cora, the Doctor's Wife' or 'The Pearl of Orr's Island,' you'd know lots more about things." "I know!" cried Candace triumphantly. "She'd had on the dress when he asked her to marry him, and she loved it." "I can see how she'd kiss him, but I'd never 'a' thought of her kissin' a waist!" murmured Emma Jane obstinately.