“Ah, now, somebody has been teasing her about being an old maid,” said Miss Anna to herself, recognizing the signs.

“This world is a very unprincipled place to live in,” continued Harriet, her rage curdling into philosophy.

“Ah, but it is the best there is just yet,” maintained Miss Anna, stoutly.  “By and by we may all be able to do better—­those of us who get the chance.”

“What shall I care then?” said Harriet, scouting eternity as a palliative of contemporary woes.

“Wait! you are tired and you have lost your temper from thirst:  children always do.  I’ll bring something to cure you, fresh from the country, fresh from Ambrose Webb’s farm.  Besides, you have a dark shade of the blues, my dear; and this remedy is capital for the blues.  You have but to sip a glass slowly—­and where are they?” And she hastened into the house.

She returned with two glasses of cool buttermilk.

The words and the deed were characteristic of one of the most wholesome women that ever helped to straighten out a crooked and to cool a feverish world.  Miss Anna’s very appearance allayed irritation and became a provocation to good health, to good sense.  Her mission in life seemed not so much to distribute honey as to sprinkle salt, to render things salubrious, to enable them to keep their tonic naturalness.  Not within the range of womankind could so marked a contrast have been found for Harriet as in this maiden lady of her own age, who was her most patient friend and who supported her clinging nature (which still could not resist the attempt to bloom) as an autumn cornstalk supports a frost-nipped morning-glory.

If words of love had ever been whispered into Miss Anna’s ear, no human being knew it now:  but perhaps her heart also had its under chamber sealed with tears.  Women not even behind her back jested at her spinsterhood; and when that is true, a miracle takes place indeed.  No doubt Miss Anna was a miracle, not belonging to any country, race, or age; being one of those offerings to the world which nature now and then draws from the deeps of womanhood:  a pure gift of God.

The two old maids drained their rectifying beverage in the shady porch.  Whether from Miss Anna’s faith in it or from the simple health-giving of her presence, Harriet passed through a process of healing; and as she handed back the empty glass, she smiled gratefully into Miss Anna’s sparkling brown eyes.  Nature had been merciful to her in this, that she was as easily healed as wounded.  She now returned to the subject which had so irritated her, as we rub pleasantly a spot from which a thorn has been extracted.

“What do I care?” she said, straightening her hat as if to complete her recovery.  “But if there is one thing that can make me angry, Anna, it is the middle-aged, able-bodied unmarried men of this town.  They are perfectly, perfectly contemptible.”

“Oh, come now!” cried Miss Anna, “I am too old to talk about such silly things myself; but what does a woman care whether she is married or not if she has had offers?  And you have had plenty of good offers, my dear.”