“I guess the 'spring medicine' has been two weeks' good time with that trainin' and careerin' houseful of girls,” rejoined Miss Jane, wisely. “Everybody in the village sits up kind o' smart and looks as if they'd taken a tonic. Maybe I'd better write to Aurelia on Sunday, Mirandy.”
“Mebbe you had, Jane, and if she can't spare Hannah, say we'll take Rebecca, though I always thought she was a self-willed child, too full of her own fancies to be easy managed.”
This is not the time for Rebecca's story; but, as a matter of fact, Mrs. Aurelia Randall could not spare Hannah, who was docile, industrious, and of much assistance with the house-work, and as a matter of fact it was the somewhat dreaded Rebecca who did come from the far-away farm to live in the dull old house with Miss Jane and Miss Miranda. And all that befell this new family circle, formed almost by accident, and all that Rebecca did, or became, as well as everything that happened during the gradual beautifying of Emma Jane Perkins, was, as you see, the indirect result of Bell Winship's madcap experiment in housekeeping.