"Come," Rachel said, taking her by the hand. It was quite late in the afternoon now, and the shadows of everything were growing longer. She could not understand why it was at first, but now she knew. And the sun would be round there in Asia presently. In her secret heart she still believed the sun went round and the earth stood still, for in the movement people must slip off. But then what held it in the air? Cousin Chilian had a globe, but you see there was a strong wire through the middle, fastened to the frame at both ends. Perhaps the earth was fastened somewhere! She liked to make it revolve on its axis, and in imagination she crossed the oceans, and seas, and capes, and found her father again.
The stage had just come in. They paused on the corner, waiting for Cousin Chilian. Some one was with him—yes, it was Cousin Giles Leverett.
"Well, little woman," he began, "so I find you out here meandering round, and so much improved that I hardly know you. We were afraid in the winter you were going to slip away and leave all this fortune behind you, never having had a bit of good of it. But you look now as if you had taken a new lease. And you are positively growing!"
Chilian smiled at the remark. He had begun to think so himself. And she looked so pretty just now with the pink in her cheeks and the soft tendrils of hair about her forehead, the eager, luminous eyes. He reached out and took her hand.
"Have you been inspecting old Salem, and did you find any queer things?" Cousin Giles asked.
"Oh, there was a great shipload of goods from India and it seemed almost as if you were walking through the booths at home, only there were no natives and no beggars or holy men——"
"Tut! tut! child; they are not holy men who are too lazy to move and waiting for other people to fill their mouths. If they were here we'd make them work or they'd have to starve. They're talking about missionaries being sent out to convert them. I heard a rousing sermon on Sunday, but it didn't loosen my purse-strings. Your greatest missionary is work, good hard labor, clearing up and planting. Suppose those old Mayflower people had sat down and held out their hands for alms. Do you suppose our Indians would have filled 'em with their corn, and fish, and game? Not much. They'd tied 'em to a tree and set fire to 'em." When Cousin Giles was excited he made elisions of speech rather unusual for a Boston man. "They went to work and cut down trees, and built houses, and raised farm and garden truck, and made shoes and clothes, and roads and bridges, and built cities and towns, and shamed those countries thousands of years old. And now we're trying to help them by bringing over their goods and selling them."
"And creating extravagance, Elizabeth would say," returned Chilian, with a sort of humorous smile.
"Oh, you might as well keep the money going as to hoard it up in an old stocking, so long as it is honestly yours. We're getting to be quite a notable country, Chilian Leverett."
They turned into Derby Street, and Cousin Giles paused to survey the garden.