Page:Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1903).djvu/106

88 "I?" laughed Rebecca. "Nonsense! it's only the pink gingham."

"You 're not good looking every day," insisted Emma Jane; "but you 're different somehow. See my garnet ring; mother scrubbed it in soap and water. How on earth did your aunt Mirandy let you put on your bran' new dress?"

"They were both away and I did n't ask," Rebecca responded anxiously. "Why? Do you think they 'd have said no?"

"Miss Mirandy always says no, does n't she?" asked Emma Jane.

"Ye—es; but this afternoon is very special—almost like a Sunday-school concert."

"Yes," assented Emma Jane, "it is, of course; with your name on the board, and our pointing to your flag, and our elergant dialogue, and all that."

The afternoon was one succession of solid triumphs for everybody concerned. There were no real failures at all, no tears, no parents ashamed of their offspring. Miss Dearborn heard many admiring remarks passed upon her ability, and wondered whether they belonged to her or partly, at least, to Rebecca. The child had no more to do than several others, but she was somehow in the foreground. It transpired afterwards at various village entertainments that Rebecca could n't be kept in the background; it positively refused to hold her. Her worst enemy could not have