"Mother's awful sorry for her," was Persis's comment. "But everybody's kind of lost sympathy for her because she lives so out of creation, and it's so much work to get there."
"Well"—and Rebecca leaned toward the group confidentially—"I was thinking about it night before last as I was leaning over the gate. Now look the other way, girls, and don't laugh while I explain. All of a sudden I thought the pieces of our quilt will be scraps of dresses; why not take those that we, and all the other people, have had the loveliest times in? We could put them everywhere but round the edges, everywhere they'd touch Miss Roxy, I mean—on her neck and shoulders and arms and waist and knees. It'd be a quilt of happiness then; that's my idea!" And Rebecca waited with flushing cheeks and downcast eyes for the verdict.
There was a breathless pause of half a minute. Emma Jane seldom moved her mind in the presence of Rebecca, feeling that competition was impossible; still she was the first to break the silence with her customary ejaculation: "I think it would be perfectly elegant!"
Alice Robinson nodded her curly head responsively and said: '"Quilt of Happiness!' It sounds lovely, if we don't have to tell anybody grown up who would say it's silly."
"But can happiness strike into anybody?" inquired Candace, who, as the daughter of an Orthodox deacon, went to the foundation of things.
Rebecca was inclined to evade the direct question, inasmuch as her cherished idea had no real basis save one of pure sentiment.
"I can't help feeling that if we just collect scraps of happiness," she said shyly, "and cut and stitch and tack happiness into the quilt, all in secret, that Miss Roxy'd feel warmer in it, though, of course, she'd never guess why."
"Well," answered Candace, a little unconvinced but generously approving, "I think it couldn't do any harm to try."
"And there's just one person we might tell, for she'd understand and help us get the right pieces without telling our secret, and that's teacher." This suggestion from Persis Watson.
Rebecca clapped her hands delightedly.