“Good afternoon”—again.
It was a quaint little figure in tight red calico standing there. It might easily have stepped down from some old picture on the wall. Rebecca Mary had a bundle in her arms. It was so large that it obscured breast and face, and only a pair of grave blue eyes, presided over by thin, light brows, seemed visible to the minister's wife. The trousers puzzle merged into this one. Now who could—
“Oh! Oh, it's Miss Plummer's little girl Rebecca,” she said, cordially.
“Rebecca Mary her NIECE,” came, a little muffled, from behind the great bundle.
“Rebecca Mary's niece—— Oh, you mean Miss Plummer's niece, and your whole name is that! But I suppose she calls you Rebecca or Becky, for short? Walk in, Rebecca.”
But Rebecca Mary was struggling with the paralyzing vision of Aunt Olivia calling her Becky. She had passed by the lesser wonder of being called Rebecca without the Mary.
“Oh no'm, indeed; Aunt 'Livia never shortens me,” gently gasped the child. And the minister's wife, measuring from the bundle down, smiled to herself. There did not seem much room for shortening.
“But walk in, dear—you're going to walk in? I hope you have come to make me a little call?”
Rebecca Mary struggled out of her paralysis. Here was occasion for new embarrassment. For Rebecca Mary was honest.
“N-o'm I mean, not a LITTLE call. I've come to spend the afternoon,” she said, slowly, “and I've brought my work.”