“Humph!” commented Mrs. Gilbert. “When is your school out?”
“It ended on Friday.”
“Oh, indeed! And are you going to help your mother, now?”
“Yes. She’s not so well as common, this summer, and we can’t get hired help—any that’s worth having.”
“Shall you wait on table?” asked Mrs. Gilbert, with a keen look.
“No—not just at first,” said Rachel, with a little hesitation. Mrs. Gilbert lifted her eyebrows, and the girl blushed and added, “I wanted to, but mother thought it wasn’t best till the boarders had forgotten about—about the—the picture.”
“Your mother is right. They’ll forget it sooner than you think,” answered Mrs. Gilbert, looking to see if this arrow hit. But it seemed to fall blunted from Rachel’s armor; she rose and said she must bid Mrs. Gilbert good night. Mrs. Gilbert followed her to the door. “Don’t think, my dear,” she said, “that I meant to wound your feelings by saying that they’d soon forget your picture. Perhaps it’s true. But I wanted merely to see if you’d any false pride about you. I know how to strike it, for I’m full of it myself. Good night, Rachel; I wish you’d come again. Do let me be of use to you, if I can; and tell your mother that I couldn’t consent to give less than I did for Blossom. I bought it at the lowest price conscience would let me. You don’t blame me for having my way about it, do you?” Rachel dropped her eyes as Mrs. Gilbert took her passive hand.
She turned, as Rachel closed the door, to her bureau, near which the girl had paused; some loose bills lay on it; a five, a two, three quarters. Mrs. Gilbert’s talk had ended as it began, and she had paid two dollars and a quarter for Rachel’s picture, after all, as Rachel had steadfastly meant from the first. She gave a sharp “Ah!” and flung the money on the bureau again in disgust. “The girl’s granite!”
Chapter VIII
AT the best, love is fatal to friendship; the most that friendship can do is to listen to love’s talk of itself and be the confident of its rapturous joys, its transports of despair. The lover fancies himself all the fonder of his friend because of his passion for his mistress, but in reality he has no longer any need of the old comrade. They cannot talk sanely and frankly together any more; there is something now that they cannot share; even if the lover desired to maintain the old affectionate relation, the mistress could not suffer it. The specter of friendship is sometimes invited to haunt the home of the lovers after marriage; but when their happiness has been flaunted in its face, when it has been shown the new house, the new china, the new carpets, the new garden, it is tacitly exorcised, and is not always called back again except to be shown the new baby. The young spouses are ever so willing to have the poor ghost remain; the wife learns whether it takes two or three lumps of sugar in its tea; the husband bids it smoke anywhere it likes, and the wife smiles a menacing acquiescence; but all the same they turn it out-of-doors. They praise it when it is gone, and they feel so much more comfortable to be alone.