I went tonight. Don't say a word;
you knew when you married me."
Aunt Olivia received the resplendent doll in silence. Plummer
honesty and Plummer politeness were at variance. Plummer politeness said: "Thank her. For goodness' sake, aren't you going to thank
the minister's wife?" But Plummer honesty, grim and yieldless,
said, "You can't thank her, because you're not thankful." So Aunt
Olivia sat silent, with her resplendent doll across her knees.
"For Rebecca Mary," the minister's wife was saying, in rather a
halting way. "I dressed it for her. I thought perhaps she never--"
"She never," said Aunt Olivia, briefly. Strange that at that particular
instant she should remember a trifling incident in the child's
far-off childhood. The incident had to do with a little, white
nightgown rolled tightly and pinned together. She had found Rebecca
Mary in her little waist and petticoat cuddling it in bed.
"It's a dollie. Please 'sh, Aunt Olivia, or you'll wake her up!"
the child had whispered, in an agony. "Oh, you're not agoing to
turn her back to a nightgown? Don't unpin her, Aunt Olivia--it
will kill her! I'll name her after you if you'll let her stay."
"Get up and take your clothes off." Strange Aunt Olivia should
remember at this particular instant; should remember, too, that
the pin had been a little rusty and came out hard.
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