“Hurry and dress, Rebecca Mary; there's a good deal to do,” Aunt Olivia said at the door. She did not go in. “Yes, in your second-best—don't you see I've put it out. You can wear that every day now, till—for a while.” Something in the voice startled Rebecca Mary out of her subdued ecstasy and sent her down to breakfast with a nameless fear tugging at her heart.
“You're going to stay at the minister's—I've paid your board in advance,” Aunt Olivia said, monotonously, as if it were her lesson. She did not look at Rebecca Mary. “I've put in your long-sleeve aprons so you can help do up the dishes. There's plenty of handkerchiefs to last. You mustn't forget your rubbers when it's wet, or to make up your bed yourself. I don't want you to make the minister's wife any more trouble than you can help.”
The lesson went monotonously on, but Rebecca Mary scarcely heard. She had heard the first sentence—her sentence, poor child! “You're going to stay at the minister's—stay at the minister's—stay at the minister's.” It said itself over and over again in her ears. In her need for somebody to lean on, her startled gaze sought the beautiful being across the room in agonized appeal.
But Olivicia was staring smilingly at Aunt Olivia. ET TU, OLIVICIA!
If Rebecca Mary had noticed, there was an appealing, wistful look in Aunt Olivia's eyes too, in odd contrast to the firm lips that moved steadily on with their lesson:
“You can walk to school with Rhoda, you'll enjoy that. You've never had folks to walk with. And you can stay with her, only you mustn't forget your stents. I've put in some towels to hem. Maybe the minister's wife has got something; if so, hem hers first. You'll be like one o' the family, and they're nice folks, but I want you to keep right on being a Plummer.”
Years afterwards Rebecca Mary remembered the dizzy dance of the bottles in the caster—they seemed to join hands and sway and swing about their silver circlet and how Aunt Olivia's buttons marched and countermarched up and down Aunt Olivia's alpaca dress. She did not look above the buttons—she did not dare to. If she was to keep right on being a Plummer, she must not cry.
“That's all,” she heard through the daze and dizziness, “except that I can't tell when I'll be back. It—ain't decided. Likely I shan't be able—there won't be much chance to write, and you needn't expect me to. No need to write me either. That's all, I guess.”
The stage that came for Aunt Olivia dropped the little carpetbag and Rebecca Mary at the minister's. In the brief interval between the start and the dropping, Rebecca Mary sat, stiff and numb, on the edge of the high seat and gazed out unfamiliarly at the familiar landmarks they lurched past. At any other time the knowledge that she was going to the minister's to stay—to live—would have filled her with staid joy. At any other time—but THIS time only a dull ache filled her little dreary world. Everything seemed to ache—the munching cows in the Trumbull pasture, the cats on the doorsteps, the dog loping along beside the stage, the stage driver's stooping old back. Aunt Olivia was going to the city—Rebecca Mary wasn't going to the city. There was no room in the world for anything but that and the ache.
Rebecca Mary's indignation was not born till night. Then, lying in the dainty bed under Rhoda's pink quilt, her mood changed. Until then she had only been disappointed. But then she sat up suddenly and said bitter things about Aunt Olivia.