“Oh yes, you were, you sly thing; don’t try to deceive my youth and inexperience. I suppose you’re glad your school’s over for the summer, Rachel.”
“I don’t know. Yes, I’m glad; it’s hard work. I shall have a change, at least, helping about home.”
“What shall you do?”
“I suppose I shall wait on table.”
“Well, then, you shall not. I’ll arrange that with your mother, anyway. I’ll wait on table myself, first.”
“I don’t see what difference it makes whether I work for the boarders in the kitchen or wait on them at the table.”
“It makes a great difference: you can’t be bidden by them if you’re not in the way, and I’m not going to have a woman of genius asking common clay if it will take some more of the hash or another help of pie in my presence. Yes, I say genius, Rachel; and Mrs. Gilbert said so, too,” cried Mrs. Farrell, at some signs in the girl, who seemed a little impatient of the subject, as of something already talked over; “and I’m proud of having been in the secret of it. I never shall forget how they all looked when I came dancing out with it and stood it up at the head of the table, where they could see it! They thought I did it, and they had quite a revulsion of feeling when they found it was yours. Where are you going, Rachel? To Florence, or the Cooper Institute, or Doctor Rimmer?”
“I have no idea of going anywhere. I have no money; father couldn’t afford to send me. I don’t expect to leave home.”
“Well, then, I’ll tell you: you must. Why can’t you come and stay with me in Boston, this winter? I’ve got two rooms, and money enough to keep a couple of mice—especially if one’s a country mouse—and we’ll study art together. I might as well do that as anything—or nothing. Come, is it a bargain?”
“If I could get the money to pay for my boarding, I think I should like it very much. But I couldn’t,” answered Rachel, quietly.