XXIV
ALADDIN RUBS HIS LAMP
YOUR esteemed contribution entitled Wareham Wildflowers has been accepted for The Pilot, Miss Perkins," said Rebecca, entering the room where Emma Jane was darning the firm's stockings. "I stayed to tea with Miss Maxwell, but came home early to tell you."
"You are joking, Becky!" faltered Emma Jane, looking up from her work.
"Not a bit; the senior editor read it and thought it highly instructive; it appears in the next issue."
"Not in the same number with your poem about the golden gates that close behind us when we leave school?"—and Emma Jane held her breath as she awaited the reply.
"Even so, Miss Perkins."
"Rebecca," said Emma Jane, with the nearest approach to tragedy that her nature would permit, "I don't know as I shall be able to bear it, and if anything happens to me, I ask you solemnly to bury that number of The Pilot with me."
Rebecca did not seem to think this the expression of an exaggerated state of feeling, inasmuch as she replied, "I know; that 's just the way it seemed to me at first, and even now, whenever I 'm alone
