“I suppose I must go,” said Rose, placing the fruit carefully in the pan, and then, slipping off her flowing apron, she went hurriedly to the front door.
There stood the pretty figure of Rachel Varnhagen, dressed in billowy muslin, a picture hat which was adorned with the brightest of ribbons and artificial flowers, and the daintiest of shoes. Her sallow cheeks were tinged with a carmine flush, her pearly teeth gleamed behind a winning smile, and a tress of glossy hair, escaped from under her frail head-dress, hung bewitchingly upon her shoulder.
“Oh, how do you do?” she exclaimed effusively, as she closed her silk parasol. “I look an awful guy, I know; but there’s such a wind, that I’ve almost been blown to pieces.”
It was the first time that Rose’s humble roof had had the privilege of sheltering the daughter of the rich Jew.
“I’m afraid I hardly expected you.” The Pilot’s daughter looked frankly and with an amused smile at Rachel. “I’m in the middle of bottling fruit. Do you mind coming into the kitchen?—the fruit will spoil if I leave it.”
Leading the way, she was followed by her pretty caller, who, in all her glory, seated herself on a cane-bottomed chair in the kitchen, and commenced to gossip.
“I’ve such news,” she said, tapping the pine floor with the ferrule of her parasol. Rose continued to transfer her plums to the preserving-pan. “I expect you heard of the dreadful experience I had with that horrid, drunken digger who caught me on the foot-bridge—everybody heard of it. Who do you think it was that saved me?”
She waited for Rose to risk a guess.
“I suppose,” said the domestic girl, her arms akimbo as she faced her visitor, “I should think it ought to have been Mr. Zahn.”
“Oh, him!” exclaimed Rachel, disgustedly. “I’ve jilted him—he was rude to Papa.”