"Rachel!" Miss Parrott's voice had a pleasant ring to it. Rachel came
dancing along a little curving path, the red coral beads flying up and down
on her breast, her cheeks nearly as red. "Oh, it's perfectly beautiful
here," she cried.
"Do you like it?" Miss Parrott's thin cheek glowed, too. It carried her
back to the day when she as a child had been skipping in that old garden,
and her heart gave a throb at the thought that there were perhaps in store
for her many delights yet, through Rachel's enjoyment of the old-fashioned
flowers and shrubs.
"But come, child," she brought herself up suddenly to say, with a little
laugh; "Hooper has summoned us to luncheon, and we must obey."
"Do you have to obey a servant?" asked Rachel, coming out of her dance to
fall into step by her side, and looking up with wide-open eyes.
"Always," said Miss Parrott most positively, "else they won't obey me, if I
don't. It's system that makes everything comfortable, Rachel."
As Rachel knew nothing whatever about system, she followed silently, her
small head full of the beautiful garden in which she had been rioting, and
which--oh, joy!--Miss Parrott promised she should visit again, when the
luncheon was over. And seated at the polished mahogany table, she was so
lost in thought that Miss Parrott, in state at the other end, was obliged
to speak to her twice before she looked up.
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