"You don't want people laughing at her, do you?" Duty said, sensibly.
"Well, then, rip out that hem and face up that skirt and stop sighing.
What can't be cured must be endur--"
"I'm ripping it out," Aunt Olivia interrupted, crisply. But Duty
was not to be silenced.
"You ought to have done it before," dictatorially. "You've known
all along that Rebecca Mary was growing up."
Aunt Olivia, like the proverbial worm, turned.
"I didn't know till Rebecca Mary told me," she retorted; then the
rebellion died out of her thin face and tenderness came and took
its place. Aunt Olivia was thinking of the time when Rebecca Mary
told her. She gazed past Duty, past the skirt across her knees, out
through the porch vines, and saw Rebecca Mary coming to tell her.
She saw the shawl the child was bringing, felt it laid on her
shoulders, and something else laid on her hair, soft and smooth
like a little, lean, brown cheek. The memory was so pleasant
that Aunt Olivia closed her eyes to make it stay. When she opened
them some one was coming along the path, but it was not Rebecca Mary.
"Good afternoon!" some one said. Aunt Olivia stiffened into a
Plummer again with hurried embarrassment. She did not recognize
the voice nor the pleasant young face that followed it through
the vines.
"It's Rebecca Mary's aunt, isn't it?" The stranger smiled.
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