“You needn't let me,” smiled Miss Olivia; “I'll do it without.” She was gently radiant. Her pitifully thin face, so transfigured, touched the big heart of the minister. He went to his window and watched the slight figure hurry away. He would scarcely have been surprised to see it turn down the road that led towards the railway station.
“Oh, Robert!” It was the minister's wife at his elbow. “You dear boy, I know you've promised! You needn't tell me a thing—didn't I suggest it in the first place? Dear Miss Olivia—I'm so glad, Robert! So are you glad, you minister!” But they were neither of them thinking of little, stubbed-out shoes that would be easier to buy.
Aunt Olivia turned down the station road the next morning, in the swaying old stage. Her eager gaze never left the plodding horses, as if by looking at them she could make them go faster.
“They're pretty slow, aren't they?” she said.
“Slow—THEM? Well, I guess you weren't never a stage horse!” chuckled the old man at the reins.
“No,” admitted Aunt Olivia, “I never was, but I know I'd go faster today.”
At the Junction, halfway to Rebecca Mary, she descended alertly from the train and crossed the platform. She must wait here, they told her, an hour and twenty minutes. On the other side of the station a train was just slowing up, and she stood a moment to scan idly the thin stream of people that trickled from the cars. There were old women—did any of them, she wondered, feel as happy as she did? There were tall children, too. There was one—Aunt Olivia started a little and fumbled in her soft hair, under the roses in her bonnet brim, for her glasses. There was one tall child—she was coming this way—she was coming fast—she was running! Her arms were out—
“Aunt Olivia! Aunt Olivia!” the Tall Child was crying out, joyously, “Oh, Aunt Olivia!”
“Rebecca Mary!—my dear, my dear!”
They were in each other's arms. The roses on Aunt Olivia's bonnet brim slipped to one side—the two of them, not Plummers any more, but a common, glad old woman and a common, glad, tall child, were kissing each other as though they would never stop. The stream of people reached them and flowed by on either side. Trains came and went, and still they stood like that.