“Oh no!” cried the girl quickly, with a kind of shiver; “we had enough of that when father was preaching, and we used to have to take everything we ate or wore as a sort of gracious gift. We children didn’t feel it as my mother did, of course. When we came here—” but at this word she stopped and set her lips firmly.
“Go on,” said Mrs. Gilbert. “When you came here your mother said you should starve and go in rags before you took a shred or a morsel from anybody.”
“How did you know?” inquired Rachel, lifting her eyes in a calm, grave surprise.
“I knew it because I respect your mother. When I order a great ideal picture of America from you, you shall paint me your mother’s portrait. Only in these days they’ll say it isn’t in the least like America. No matter: it’s like what she has been and hasn’t forgotten how to be again.”
“Yes,” said Rachel, simply, “we all tell mother there’s not many like her nowadays, and folks won’t understand her way with them, and will lay it to pride.”
“Oh, let them lay it to what they like!” cried Mrs. Gilbert, with enthusiasm. “If she can keep the black burden of gratitude off your souls, it’s no matter. It hardens the heart worse than prosperity.”
Rachel looked sober at the expression of these cynical ideas, and edged ever so little away from Mrs. Gilbert, who burst into a laugh. “Don’t mind my harum-scarum paradoxes, Rachel! I’ve had a great many kind things said and done to me, and there are several of my benefactors whom I don’t hate at all. But how is it,” she asked, being perhaps unable to deny herself the pleasure of looking further into this sincere nature, even if she used an unfair pressure in her questions—“how is it that you have let Mrs. Farrell give you lessons in drawing for nothing?”
Rachel colored and was silent some moments before she answered with dignity, “We can take it off her board, when we find out what it ought to be. I don’t know as they could rightly be called lessons. I never copied anything of hers.”
“I can very well imagine it,” said Mrs. Gilbert, dryly. “Do you admire her pictures?”
Rachel paused again before answering. “No, I can’t say I do. But she has told me a great many useful things, and she has corrected what I was doing. I wish you hadn’t asked me that, Mrs. Gilbert; I don’t think—”