And now," she added
brightly, "I want you to come into the drawing-room, and----"
"What's 'drawing-room'?" demanded Rachel, who felt it was much better for
all concerned in a conversation to understand things as they went along.
"Why, that is the parlor," answered Miss Parrott.
"Oh."
"I want to hear you sing, Rachel," cried Miss Parrott longingly. "I can
hardly wait, come." She hurried the child along with hasty steps, Rachel
skipping by her side.
"I'll sing," she said, "all you want me to. I know lots and lots of
things"--until the grand piano in the long, dim drawing-room, not opened
for many years, was reached. Then she spun down the middle of the
apartment. "I'm going to dance first," she announced, picking out the skirt
of her gown on either side. "My, but ain't it dark, here, though!"
XXIV
RACHEL'S FUTURE
When the old brougham drew up in front of the colonial door, Miss Parrott
let her hands fall away from the time-stained piano-keys.
"It can't surely be time for you to go, Rachel."
Then she did a thing she could not remember doing in all her life, she
deliberately went on with her employment, allowing Simmons to wait on his
carriage box, while she broke up the system of years that always made her
punctual to a minute.
"You may sing that over again, Rachel," she said, beginning on the strains
of the opera that Rachel had gathered from the barrel-organ on the street
corners.
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