Simmons came
out of his retirement, his chamois skin with which he had been ostensibly
polishing up a carriage, still in his hand, to stand in the doorway to
watch them.
"Well, I _am_ surprised," he declared, quite slowly and impressively,
as befitted a serving-man to an old genteel family.
"Oh, let's go in there," cried Rachel, catching sight of the tall
hollyhocks behind a wicket gate and pulling at the long, slender fingers.
Miss Parrott hesitated.
"Well, just one peep," she said, "for it is near to luncheon time," and she
pulled out the watch from her belt. But to Rachel "a peep" meant all the
world, so she dropped the fingers and raced through the gateway, to get
there first and thus make it last as long as possible.
"Oh, oh!" she cried, her little dark face aflame with delight, "it's the
most beautiful place." Then she began to run up and down all the narrow
paths marking the circles and hearts and diamonds in which the
old-fashioned garden was laid out, and sniffing the fragrance as she ran.
Miss Parrott seated herself on a stone seat by the fountain in the center.
Her delight was quite equal to Rachel's, and the thin, wrinkled face
assumed a more peaceful expression than it had carried for many a day, so
that when Hooper came to summon her to luncheon, he was fairly taken aback
at its unwonted cheer.
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