"
Suddenly the wickedness was over. She laughed unsteadily.
"It wouldn't be a good name for a sheriff's wife, would it?" she said.
"So I'll stay by my own minister."
One day close upon this time Aunt Olivia came abruptly upon
Rebecca Mary in the grape arbor. She was sitting in her little
rocking chair, swaying back and forth slowly. She did not see
Aunt Olivia. What was she was crooning half under her breath?
"Oh, hush, oh, hush, my dollie;
Don't worry any more,
For Rebecca Mary 'n' the angels
Are watching o'er,
---O'er 'n' o'er 'n' o'er."
The same words over and over--growing perhaps a little softer and
tenderer. Rebecca Mary's arm was crooked as though a little
flaxen head lay in the bend of it. Rebecca Mary's brooding little
face was gazing downward intently at her empty arm. Quite
suddenly it came upon Aunt Olivia that she had seen the child
rocking like this before--that she must have seen her often.
"Rebecca Mary 'n' the angels
Are watching o'er,"
sang on the crooning little voice in Aunt Olivia's ears.
The doll in its coffin upstairs; down here Rebecca Mary rocking
her empty arms. The two thoughts flashed into Aunt Olivia's mind
and welded into one. All her vacillations and Duty's sharp
reminders occurred to her clearly. She had thought that at last
she was proof against temptation, but she had not thought of
this.
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