Fisher and Mr. King had been consulted.
"They have sent the child here to us, and here she must stay until they
make some other arrangement," they said firmly, and no amount of urging
could make them say anything else.
So letters had to fly back and forth from the parsonage and the King estate
in the big city, and Miss Parrott wrote long letters in a pinched,
lady-like hand in very faint ink, crossing the paper whenever she was
afraid she hadn't said enough to plead her cause successfully. Which
condition of mind she was in perpetually, all through these writing days.
These letters old Mr. King endeavored to read at the first, but he soon
threw them down impatiently.
"The child shall never go to a woman who has no more sense," he loudly
declared.
Then Polly or Jasper would hurry in and wade through the missives. And when
he saw the hungry longing of the desolate soul, and the sweet refinement of
the writer came out, and the sterling honesty was revealed in the prim
sentences, he relented and went tumultuously over to the other side.
"Yes, yes, she shall go," he declared, pulling out his big handkerchief to
blow his nose violently, to remove all suspicion that anything was the
matter with his eyes; "'twould be the best thing in the world for her. Of
course she must go."
And so it was finally settled that Rachel was to live at Miss Parrott's and
be her own little girl, going down to the parsonage every day to learn her
lessons under Mr.
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