Rachel went straight to her mother , put one little dimpled hand on Isabella Spencer 's knee , looked up with great searching blue eyes , and said gravely , `` Mother , why have n't I got a father like the other little girls ? '' Isabella Spencer laid aside her work , took the seven year old child on her lap , and told her the whole story in a few direct and bitter words that imprinted themselves indelibly on Rachel 's remembrance . She understood clearly and hopelessly that she could never have a father -- that , in this respect , she must always be unlike other people . `` Your father cares nothing for you , '' said Isabella Spencer in conclusion . `` He never did care . You must never speak of him to anybody again . '' Rachel slipped silently from her mother 's knee and ran out to the Springtime garden with a full heart . There she cried passionately over her mother 's last words . It seemed to her a terrible thing that her father should not love her , and a cruel thing that she must never talk of him . Oddly enough , Rachel 's sympathies were all with her father , in as far as she could understand the old quarrel . She did not dream of disobeying her mother and she did not disobey her . Never again did the child speak of her father ; but Isabella had not forbidden her to think of him , and thenceforth Rachel thought of him constantly -- so constantly that , in some strange way , he seemed to become an unguessed-of part of her inner life -- the unseen , ever-present companion in all her experiences . She was an imaginative child , and in fancy she made the acquaintance of her father . She had never seen him , but he was more real to her than most of the people she had seen . He played and talked with her as her mother never did ; he walked with her in the orchard and field and garden ; he sat by her pillow in the twilight ; to him she whispered secrets she told to none other . Once her mother asked her impatiently why she talked so much to herself . `` I am not talking to myself . I am talking to a very dear friend of mine , '' Rachel answered gravely . `` Silly child , '' laughed her mother , half tolerantly , half disapprovingly . Two years later something wonderful had happened to Rachel .
One summer afternoon she had gone XXXXX the harbor with several of her little playmates .
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