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.
"Creme de Menthe," she said. "Liqueur, you know. It looks as if I drank,
doesn't it? As a matter of fact it goes to prove what an exceptionally
abstemious person I am.
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