It's going to be such a
beautiful doll! And you needn't tell me that poor little eleven-
year-old woman-child won't hold out her empty arms for it. Robert, you're a minister; would it be wrong to give it to her STRAIGHT?"
"Straight, dear?"
"Yes; without saying anything to her aunt Olivia. Tell me.
Rhoda's gone. Say it as--as liberally as you can."
The minister for answer swept doll, petticoat, and minister's
wife into his arms, and kissed them all impartially.
"Think if it were Rhoda," she pleaded.
"And you were 'Aunt Olivia'? You ask me to think such hard
things, dear! If I could stop being a minister long enough--"
"Stop?" she laughed; but she knew she meant keep on. With a sigh
she burrowed a little deeper in his neck. "Then I'll ask Aunt
Olivia first," she said.
She went back to her tucking. Only once more did she mention
Rebecca Mary. The once was after she had come downstairs from
tucking the children into bed. She stood in the doorway with the
look in her face that mothers have after doing things like that.
The minister loved that look.
"Robert, nights when I kiss the children--you knew when you married
me that I was foolish--I kiss little lone Rebecca Mary, too. I began
the day Thomas Jefferson died--I went to the Rebecca-Mary-est
window and threw her a kiss.
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