Lily gave him a swift glance, and wondered how much she really liked him. He seemed "pretty country" sometimes beside the young hardware man who was writing her from the West. But she was one to "make things go," and she talked glibly on until they had crossed Alewife Bridge and Wilfred drew up before a gray house with a garden in front, marked out in little prim beds defined by pebbles, and all without a weed. The iris, purple and yellow, seemed to be holding banners, it was so gay, and the lilacs were in bloom. He left the reins in Lily's hands, and stood a moment at the gate, glancing at the beds. Then he went inside, tried the front door, and shut a blind that had failed to catch, and after a second frowning look at all the beds, came out and wired the gate.
"Well," said Lily, as they drove away, "ain't you good, takin' all that trouble!"
Wilfred frowned again.
"I don't like to see things go to wrack and ruin," he remarked.
"How's she look?"
"How's who look?"
"Annie Darling."
"I can't tell how folks look," said Wilfred. He spoke roughly, and she glanced at him in a calculated show of surprise. "Why, you've seen her. She was at the meetin' the night I walked home with you."
"Was she?" said Lily. "Well, I never noticed the folks here very much till I begun to get acquainted."
But she had brought back to him a picture he had been forgetting: Annie, standing in her garden, sweet, serious, and so kind. He had hardly thought before of Annie's looks. People never spoke of them when they were recalling her. She was simply a person they liked to live beside.