Read it out ag'in, mother. Land!" he continued,
chuckling, as he lighted his cob pipe; "I can just

see the last flap o' that boy-editor's shirt tail as he
legs it for the woods, while Rebecky settles down in

his revolvin' cheer! I'm puzzled as to what kind of
a job editin' is, exactly; but she'll find out, Rebecky

will. An' she'll just edit for all she's worth!
"`The thought that God has planned it so

Should help us bear the years.'
Land, mother! that takes right holt, kind o' like

the gospel. How do you suppose she thought that out?"
"She couldn't have thought it out at her age,"

said Mrs. Cobb; "she must have just guessed it
was that way. We know some things without bein'

told, Jeremiah."
Rebecca took her scolding (which she richly

deserved) like a soldier. There was considerable of it,
and Miss Miranda remarked, among other things,

that so absent-minded a child was sure to grow up
into a driveling idiot. She was bidden to stay away

from Alice Robinson's birthday party, and doomed to
wear her dress, stained and streaked as it was, until

it was worn out. Aunt Jane six months later mitigated
this martyrdom by making her a ruffled dimity

pinafore, artfully shaped to conceal all the spots.
She was blessedly ready with these mediations

between the poor little sinner and the full consequences
of her sin.

When Rebecca had heard her sentence and gone
to the north chamber she began to think. If there

was anything she did not wish to grow into, it was
an idiot of any sort, particularly a driveling one;

and she resolved to punish herself every time she
incurred what she considered to be the righteous

displeasure of her virtuousrelative. She didn't
mind staying away from Alice Robinson's. She

had told Emma Jane it would be like a picnic in
a graveyard, the Robinson house being as near an

approach to a tomb as a house can manage to be.
Children were commonly brought in at the back

door, and requested to stand on newspapers while
making their call, so that Alice was begged by her

friends to "receive" in the shed or barn whenever
possible. Mrs. Robinson was not only "turrible

neat," but "turrible close," so that the refreshments
were likely to be peppermint lozenges and glasses

of well water.
After considering the relative values, as penances,

of a piece of haircloth worn next the skin, and a
pebble in the shoe, she dismissed them both. The

haircloth could not be found, and the pebble would
attract the notice of the Argus-eyed aunt, besides

being a foolish bar to the activity of a person who
had to do housework and walk a mile and a half to

school.
Her first experimental attempt at martyrdom had

not been a distinguished success. She had stayed
at home from the Sunday-school concert, a func-

tion of which, in ignorance of more alluring ones,
she was extremely fond. As a result of her desertion,

two infants who relied upon her to prompt
them (she knew the verses of all the children better

than they did themselves) broke down ignominiously.
The class to which she belonged had to read

a difficult chapter of Scripture in rotation, and the
various members spent an arduous Sabbath afternoon

counting out verses according to their seats
in the pew, and practicing the ones that would

inevitably fall to them. They were too ignorant to
realize, when they were called upon, that Rebecca's

absence would make everything come wrong, and
the blow descended with crushing force when the

Jebusites and Amorites, the Girgashites, Hivites,
and Perizzites had to be pronounced by the persons

of all others least capable of grappling with them.
Self-punishment, then, to be adequate and proper,

must begin, like charity, at home, and unlikecharity
should end there too. Rebecca looked about the

room vaguely as she sat by the window. She must
give up something, and truth to tell she possessed

little to give, hardly anything but--yes, that would
do, the beloved pink parasol. She could not hide it

in the attic, for in some moment of weakness she
would be sure to take it out again. She feared she

had not the moral energy to break it into bits. Her
eyes moved from the parasol to the apple-trees in

the side yard, and then fell to the well curb. That
would do; she would fling her dearest possession into

the depths of the water. Action followed quickly
upon decision, as usual. She slipped down in the

darkness, stole out the front door, approached the
place of sacrifice, lifted the cover of the well, gave one

unresigned shudder, and flung the parasol downward
with all her force. At the crucial instant of

renunciation she was greatly helped by the reflection that
she closely resembled the heathen mothers who cast

their babes to the crocodiles in the Ganges.
She slept well and arose refreshed, as a

consecrated spirit always should and sometimes does.
But there was great difficulty in drawing water after

breakfast. Rebecca, chastened and uplifted, had
gone to school. Abijah Flagg was summoned, lifted

the well cover, explored, found the inciting cause of
trouble, and with the help of Yankee wit succeeded

in removing it. The fact was that the ivory hook of
the parasol had caught in the chain gear, and when

the first attempt at drawing water was made, the
little offering of a contrite heart was jerked up, bent,

its strong ribs jammed into the well side, and
entangled with a twig root. It is needless to say that

no sleight-of-hand performer, however expert, unless
aided by the powers of darkness, could have accomplished

this feat; but a luckless child in the pursuit
of virtue had done it with a turn of the wrist.

We will draw a veil over the scene that occurred
after Rebecca's return from school. You who read

may be well advanced in years, you may be gifted in
rhetoric, ingenious in argument; but even you might

quail at the thought of explaining the tortuous mental
processes that led you into throwing your beloved

pink parasol into Miranda Sawyer's well. Perhaps
you feel equal to discussing the efficacy of spiritual

self-chastisement with a person who closes her lips
into a thin line and looks at you out of blank,

uncomprehending eyes! Common sense, right, and logic
were all arrayed on Miranda's side. When poor Rebecca,

driven to the wall, had to avow the reasons
lying behind the sacrifice of the sunshade, her aunt