seemed to be two pairs of everything.  The writing-table, however, was piled with manuscript, and a table was drawn out to stand by the arm-chair on which were two separate heaps of dark library books, in which there were many slips of paper sticking out at different degrees of thickness.  Miss Allan had asked Rachel to come in out of kindness, thinking that she was waiting about with nothing to do.  Moreover, she liked young women, for she had taught many of them, and having received so much hospitality from the Ambroses she was glad to be able to repay a minute part of it.  She looked about accordingly for something to show her.  The room did not provide much entertainment.  She touched her manuscript.  “Age of Chaucer; Age of Elizabeth; Age of Dryden,” she reflected; “I’m glad there aren’t many more ages.  I’m still in the middle of the eighteenth century.  Won’t you sit down, Miss Vinrace?  The chair, though small, is firm. . . .  Euphues.  The germ of the English novel,” she continued, glancing at another page.  “Is that the kind of thing that interests you?”

She looked at Rachel with great kindness and simplicity, as though she would do her utmost to provide anything she wished to have.  This expression had a remarkable charm in a face otherwise much lined with care and thought.

“Oh no, it’s music with you, isn’t it?” she continued, recollecting, “and I generally find that they don’t go together.  Sometimes of course we have prodigies—­” She was looking about her for something and now saw a jar on the mantelpiece which she reached down and gave to Rachel.  “If you put your finger into this jar you may be able to extract a piece of preserved ginger.  Are you a prodigy?”

But the ginger was deep and could not be reached.

“Don’t bother,” she said, as Miss Allan looked about for some other implement.  “I daresay I shouldn’t like preserved ginger.”

“You’ve never tried?” enquired Miss Allan.  “Then I consider that it is your duty to try now.  Why, you may add a new pleasure to life, and as you are still young—­” She wondered whether a button-hook would do.  “I make it a rule to try everything,” she said.  “Don’t you think it would be very annoying if you tasted ginger for the first time on your death-bed, and found you never liked anything so much?  I should be so exceedingly annoyed that I think I should get well on that account alone.”

She was now successful, and a lump of ginger emerged on the end of the button-hook.  While she went to wipe the button-hook, Rachel bit the ginger and at once cried, “I must spit it out!”

“Are you sure you have really tasted it?” Miss Allan demanded.

For answer Rachel threw it out of the window.

“An experience anyhow,” said Miss Allan calmly.  “Let me see—­I have nothing else to offer you, unless you would like to taste this.”  A small cupboard hung above her bed, and she took out of it a slim elegant jar filled with a bright green fluid.