“So that the glitter of their smiles may be intensified?”
Rachel had risen from her seat. “I must be going,” she said. “I looked in for a minute, and I’ve stopped half-an-hour.”
“Then won’t you stay just a little longer—I’m going to make some tea.”
“It’s very tempting.” Rachel took off her gloves, and displayed her begemmed fingers. “I think I must stop.”
Rose infused the tea in a brown earthenware pot, and filled two china cups, in the saucers of which she placed two very old ornamented silver teaspoons.
The two girls sat at opposite sides of the white-pine table, in complete contrast; the one dark, the other fair; the one arrayed in purple and fine linen, the other dressed in plain starched print and a kitchen apron; the one the spoilt pet of an infatuated father, the other accustomed to reproof and domestic toil.
But they met on common ground in their taste for tea. With lips, equally pretty, they were sipping the fragrant beverage, when a hoarse voice resounded through the house.
“Rosebud, Rosebud, my gal! Where’s my slippers? Danged if I can see them anywhere.”
Into the kitchen stumped the Pilot of Timber Town, weary from his work. Catching sight of Rachel, he paused half-way between the door and the table. “Well, well,” he said, “I beg pardon, I’m sure—bellowing like an old bull walrus at my dar’ter. But the gal knows her old Dad—don’t you, Rosebud? He don’t mean nothing at all.”
In a moment, Rose had the old man’s slippers in her hand, and the Pilot sat down and commenced to take off his boots and to put on the more comfortable footgear.