She wrote off a check and directed it to her pastor, then rang for the trained nurse her physician had imported from New York, and ordered her to steam and massage her face and rub her old body with spirits of wine and unguents.

Strowbridge acquired the habit of dropping in on Miss Williams at all hours.  Sometimes he called at the dairy and sat on a corner of the table while she superintended the butter-making.  He liked her old-fashioned music, and often persuaded her to play for him on the new grand piano in the sky-blue parlor.  He brought her many books by the latter-day authors, all of them stories by men about men.  He had a young contempt for the literature of sentiment and sex.  Even Miss Webster grew to like him, partly because he ignored the possibility of her doing otherwise, partly because his vital frank personality was irresistible.  She even invited him informally to dinner; and after a time he joked and guyed her as if she were a school-girl, which pleased her mightily.  Of Miss Williams he was sincerely fond.

“You are so jolly companionable, don’t you know,” he would say to her.  “Most girls are bores; don’t know enough to have anything to talk about, and want to be flattered and flirted with all the time.  But I feel as if you were just another fellow, don’t you know.”

“Oh, I am used to the role of companion,” she would reply.

With the first days of June he returned to Boston, and the sun turned gray for one woman.

Life went its way in the old house.  People became accustomed to the spectacle of Miss Webster rejuvenated, and forgot to flatter.  It may be added that men forgot to propose, in spite of the four millions.  Deeper grew the gulf between the two women.  Once in every week Abby vowed she would leave, but habit was too strong.  Once in every week Miss Webster vowed she would turn the companion out, but dependence on the younger woman had grown into the fibres of her old being.

Strowbridge returned the following summer.  Almost immediately he called on Miss Williams.

“I feel as if you were one of the oldest friends I have in the world, don’t you know,” he said, as they sat together on the veranda.  “And I’ve brought you a little present—­if you don’t mind.  I thought maybe you wouldn’t.”

He took a small case from his pocket, touched a spring, and revealed a tiny gold watch and fob.  “You know,” he had said to himself apologetically as he bought it, “I can give it to her because she’s so much older than myself.  It’s not vulgar, like giving handsome presents to girls.  And then we are friends.  I’m sure she won’t mind, poor old thing!” Nevertheless, he looked at her with some apprehension.

His misgivings proved to be vagaries of his imagination.  Abby gazed at the beautiful toy with radiant face.  “For me!” she exclaimed—­“that lovely thing?  And you really bought it for me?”

“Why, of course I did,” he said, too relieved to note the significance of her pleasure.  “And you’ll take it?”