Rebecca never went across the bridge without bending over the rail to wonder and to ponder, and at this special moment she was putting the finishing touches on a poem.

Two maidens by a river strayed Down in the state of Maine. The one was called Rebecca, The other Emma Jane. "I would my life were like the stream," Said her named Emma Jane, "So quiet and so very smooth, So free from every pain."

"I'd rather be a little drop In the great rushing fall! I would not choose the glassy lake, 'T would not suit me at all!" (It was the darker maiden spoke The words I just have stated, The maidens twain were simply friends And not at all related.)

But O! alas I we may not have The things we hope to gain; The quiet life may come to me, The rush to Emma Jane!

"I don't like `the rush to Emma Jane,' and I can't think of anything else. Oh! what a smell of paint! Oh! it is ON me! Oh! it's all over my best dress! Oh I what WILL aunt Miranda say!"

With tears of self-reproach streaming from her eyes, Rebecca flew up the hill, sure of sympathy, and hoping against hope for help of some sort.