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The Heart of Rachael by Kathleen Thompson Norris
page 22 of 509 (04%)
the house liked to bring men down from town for week-end visits,
and Billy brought her young friends in and out with youthful
indifference to domestic regulations, so that on Rachael, as
housekeeper, there fell no light burden.

She carried it gracefully, knitting her handsome brows as the
seasons brought about their endless problems, discussing bulbs
with old Rafael in the garden when the snow melted, discussing
paper and paint in the first glory of May, superintending the
making of iced drinks on the hot summer afternoons, and in October
filling her woodroom duly with the great logs that would blaze
neglected in the drawing-room fireplace all winter long. The house
was not large, as such houses go; too much room was wasted by a
very modern architect in linen closets and coat closets, bathrooms
and hall space, dressing-rooms, passages, and nooks and corners
generally. Yet Rachael's guest-rooms were models in their way, and
when she gave a luncheon the women who came were always ready to
exclaim in despairing admiration over the beauty of the gardens,
the flower-filled, airy rooms, the table appointments, and the
hostess herself.

But when they said that she was "wonderful"--and it was the
inevitable word for Rachael Breckenridge-the general meaning went
deeper than this. She was wonderful in her pride, the dignity and
the silence of her attitude toward her husband; she had been a
wonderful mother to Clarence's daughter; not a loving mother,
perhaps--she was not loving to anyone--but a miracle of
determination and clearness of vision.

Who else, her friends wondered, could have cleared the social
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