`` Let me get you a cup , '' he said smiling . There was a cup near by , if he had only known it , a cracked , handleless blue cup secreted under the maple by the Rainbow Valley children ; but he did not know it , so he stepped out to one of the birch-trees and stripped a bit of its white skin away . Deftly he fashioned this into a three-cornered cup , filled it from the spring , and handed it to Rosemary . Rosemary took it and drank every drop to punish herself for her fib , for she was not in the least thirsty , and to drink a fairly large cupful of water when you are not thirsty is somewhat of an ordeal . Yet the memory of that draught was to be very pleasant to Rosemary . In after years it seemed to her that there was something sacramental about it . Perhaps this was because of what the minister did when she handed him back the cup . He stooped again and filled it and drank of it himself . It was only by accident that he put his lips just where Rosemary had put hers , and Rosemary knew it . Nevertheless , it had a curious significance for her . They two had drunk of the same cup . She remembered idly that an old aunt of hers used to say that when two people did this their after-lives would be linked in some fashion , whether for good or ill . John Meredith held the cup uncertainly . He did not know what to do with it . The logical thing would have been to toss it away , but somehow he was disinclined to do this . Rosemary held out her hand for it . `` Will you let me have it ? '' she said . `` You made it so knackily . I never saw anyone make a birch cup so since my little brother used to make them long ago -- before he died . ''
`` I learned how XXXXX make them when I was a boy , camping out one summer .
before for from in into of since that to with