She tried to conceal their length with her brief
skirts; but when she straightened up, there they were again, as
long as ever. She sat down suddenly on the shed floor and drew
them up underneath her. That was temporarily a relief. "If I sit
here world without end nobody'll see 'em," grimly smiled Rebecca
Mary.
It was her legs Rebecca Mary measured against the woodshed wall.
It was her legs she was ashamed of. No wonder the minister's wife
had said to the minister going home from meeting, with Rebecca
Mary behind them unawares,--no wonder she had said, "Robert, HAVE
you noticed Rebecca Mary's legs?"
Rebecca Mary had not heard the reply of the minister, for of
course she had gone away then. If she had stayed she would have
heard him say, with exaggerated prudery, "Felicia! My dear! Were
you alluding to Rebecca Mary's limbs?" for the minister wickedly
remembered inadvertent occasions when he himself had called legs
legs.
"LEGS," the minister's wife repeated, calmly--"Rebecca Mary's are
too long for limbs. Robert, that child will grow up one of these
days!"
"They all do," sighed the minister. "It's human nature, dear.
You'll be telling me next that there's something the matter with
Rhoda's--legs."
The minister's wife gazed thoughtfully ahead at a little trio
fast approaching the vanishing point.
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