RACHEL RACHEL _A Play in Three Acts_ ANGELINA W. GRIMKE [Illustration: (Colophon)] THE CORNHILL COMPANY BOSTON Copyright, 1920, by THE CORNHILL COMPANY _All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages_ CHARACTERS MRS MARY LOVING, _a widow_. RACHEL LOVING, _her daughter_. THOMAS LOVING, _her son_. JIMMY MASON, _a small boy_. JOHN STRONG, _a friend of the family_. MRS. LANE, _a caller_. ETHEL LANE, _her daughter_. MARY, NANCY, EDITH, JENNY, LOUISE, MARTHA, _little friends of Rachel_. TIME: The first decade of the Twentieth Century. ACT I. October 16th. ACT II. October 16th, four years later. ACT III. One week later. PLACE: A northern city. The living room in the small apartment of Mrs. Loving. All of the characters are colored. ACT I RACHEL ACT I. _The scene is a room scrupulously neat and clean and plainly furnished. The walls are painted green, the woodwork, white. In the rear at the left an open doorway leads into a hall. Its bare, green wall and white baseboard are all that can be seen of it. It leads into the other rooms of the flat. In the centre of the rear wall of the room is a window. It is shut. The white sash curtains are pushed to right and left as far as they will go. The green shade is rolled up to the top. Through the window can be seen the red bricks of a house wall, and the tops of a couple of trees moving now and then in the wind. Within the window, and just below the sill, is a shelf upon which are a few potted plants. Between the window and the door is a bookcase full of books and above it, hanging on the wall, a simply framed, inexpensive copy of Millet’s “The Reapers.” There is a run extending from the right center to just below the right upper entrance. It is the vestibule of the flat. Its open doorway faces the left wall. In the right wall near the front is another window. Here the sash curtains are drawn together and the green shade is partly lowered. The window is up from the bottom. Through it street noises can be heard. In front of this window is an open, threaded sewing-machine. Some frail, white fabric is lying upon it. There is a chair in front of the machine and at the machine’s left a small table covered with a green cloth. In the rear of the left wall and directly opposite to the entrance to the flat is the doorway leading into the kitchenette, dishes on shelves can be seen behind glass doors._