"Finish your soup, child," said Miss Parrott.
Rachel hadn't even begun it, and she now seized the first thing upon which
her hand rested, a heavy silver fork. Hooper, back of his mistress's chair,
darted forward to put the right implement before her. But Rachel gave him a
withering glance that stopped him half-way. "You don't need to come. I've
got it"; and she held up her spoon triumphantly, and ever after, all
through the meal, she seemed to view his necessary advances as so many
affronts, intended to show up her lack of manners, and she exercised all
her wits to keep him at bay. So that the old butler was glad when the meal
was over.
But long before that time arrived, Rachel had leaned back in her tall,
carved chair, letting her knife and fork rest on her plate, while she
feasted her eyes over the table, what it held, and then around the whole
apartment.
"There's some of the same flowers like the ones in the garden," she said,
bringing her gaze back to point to the old-fashioned silver vase and its
nodding clusters in the center of the table. "What are they?"
"Those are larkspur," said Miss Parrott, craning her neck to see around the
high silver service from which she poured her tea.
"And what's the other, this side?" Rachel bobbed over on her chair, till
Hooper involuntarily closed his eyes, expecting she would go entirely off
from her chair, and he didn't want to see it, it would be so disgraceful at
a Parrott table.
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