“Well, Rebecca Mary Plummer, you came to fetch my answer, did you? You got your stent 'most done?” Aunt Olivia's hands were extended for the folded sheet.
“I've got it DONE, Aunt 'Livia,” answered little Rebecca Mary, steadily. Her slender figure, in its quaint, scant dress, looked braced as if to meet a shock. But Rebecca Mary was terribly afraid.
“Every mite o' that seam? Then I guess you can't have done it very well; that's what I guess! If it ain't done well, you'll have to take it—”
“Wait—please, won't you wait, Aunt 'Livia? I've got to say something. I mean, I've got all the over-'n'-overing I'm ever going to do done. THAT'S what's done. The hundred-and-oneth stitch was my stent, and it's done. I'm not ever going to take the hundred and twoth. I've decided.”
Understanding filtered drop by drop into Aunt Olivia's bewildered brain. She gasped at the final drop.
“Not ever going to take another stitch?” she repeated, with a calmness that was awfuler than storm.
“No'm.”
“You've decided?”
“Yes'm.”
“May I ask when this—this state of mind began?”