"What's that?" cried Miss Parrott, starting. The conference was over and
she was coming out of the pastor's study, to get into her ancestral
carriage.
"That's Rachel singing," said Mrs. Henderson.
Old Miss Parrott gasped:
"Why, my dear Pastor, and Mrs. Henderson, can the child sing like that?"
"This is the first time she has tried it," said the parson, who had no ear
for music and was sorely tried when expected to admire any specimens of it.
"But I dare say she will do very well. She is a very teachable child."
"Very well!" repeated Miss Parrott quickly. "I should say so indeed. Well,
I will send for the child on Saturday to pass the day and night with me,
and then we shall see what we shall see."
With which enigmatical expression, she mounted her ancestral carriage; the
solemn coachman, who had served considerably more than a generation in the
family, gathered up the reins, and the coach rumbled off.
"Oh, what an awful old carriage!" exclaimed Rachel, running to the window.
"It looks as if its bones would stick out."
"It hasn't got any bones," said Peletiah, viewing it with awe, "and she's
awful rich, Miss Parrott is."
"I don't care," said Rachel, running back to her work and beginning to sing
again, "her carriage is all bones, anyway."
XIV
"CAN'T GO," SAID JOEL
"Joel--where are you?" Frick Mason raced in, to encounter Polly in the wide
hall.
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