Page:Rachel (1887 Nina H. Kennard).djvu/121

 feeling as I remembered the story connected with it, for many were the things she had rifled me of."

She was not the daughter of the Jew pedlar, or Esther Haya his wife, seller of old clothes, for nothing. She took a childish delight in making a "good bargain," imposing too far, sometimes, on the credulity of her neighbours. We all of us know the celebrated story of the guitar. A friend of the tragedian possessed an old guitar; Rachel saw it and asked her friend for it. It was given willingly as a piece of rubbish. Achille Fould called on Rachel a few days afterwards, and noticed the guitar hanging in a silk net, through the bright meshes of which the dark wood showed to great advantage.

"That is the guitar I made a few sous by when I sang in the streets as a little beggar-girl," said Rachel, sentimentally.

"Give it to me, I will value it more than you do."

"I dare say you will, for I cannot let you have it for less than a thousand louis."

Fould, being a financier, offered half what she asked. He had reckoned without his host. Rachel would not abate one jot of her demand, and he submitted with a good grace. The new owner of the guitar showed his acquisition with pride to his friends. Unfortunately, one day the original possessor called; on hearing the romantic tale M. Fould related, she burst out laughing, and the pedigree of the guitar came out. Someone told the occurrence to Rachel, who smiled and said, "Yes, I know; poor Fould was so furious."

It is needless to say that many of the stories told against her were the outcome of the jealousy her great and unprecedented success had excited. We have already seen how Védel, the director of the Théâtre Français