Read "The Reaping" by Mary Imlay Taylor online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
IT was a little past noon on Saturday when Rose Temple went to Allestree's studio accompanied by Aunt Hannah Colfax, a faithful old negro woman who had been devoted to her from childhood and now performed the dual duties of maid and duenna with all the complacence and shrewdness of her age and color.
Passing the quaint show-windows of Daddy Lerwick's curiosity-shop on the first floor, in which were displayed -- in amazing medley -- pewter cups, old line engravings, camel's-hair shawls and horse-pistols, they ascended the long narrow flight of stairs to the rooms above. On reaching them, Aunt Hannah promptly ensconced herself and her knitting under the window on the landing, while Rose pushed aside the portière and entered the studio, unconsciously carrying with her some of the crisp out-of-door atmosphere from whence she came and of which, in her buoyant and radiant youth, she seemed a visible and triumphant embodiment.