But he went to his cupboard and lighted his own candle, so that when she came back with hers the darkness had fled.
By this light he saw that she was a middle-aged woman; but as middle age is a sort of “movable feast,” anywhere between thirty and sixty, let us be a little more definite, and say that she was about forty, and not at all of the pale, thin, starved needlewoman and tenement-house type whom to see or hear of is so heartrending. She was plump, fair, rosy, blue-eyed and light-haired, with a cheerful and kindly expression, and she was neatly dressed in a gown of some cheap blue woolen material and a white bib apron.
“You have been ill all night, I fear, and I am very sorry for it,” she said as she set her candlestick down on the table and looked at him. “I heard you groaning just as soon as I stopped my sewing machine and could hear anything, but you ceased soon, and I didn’t think much of it, but went to bed and to sleep. I always sleep like a top; but this morning, as soon as I woke up, I heard you groaning worse than ever, and I blamed myself for not attending to you last night. Now what is the matter? Tell me. I am a right good nurse and doctress, but not professional, so I don’t cost my patients anything.”
“You are very kind, and I truly thank you, but I am not ill in the body,” replied Harcourt, with a feeble smile.
“Not in body! Then in mind. But you have not slept all night, I know, and so you are not well in body, any more than in mind. Lie down there on your bed, and I will go and make you a cup of coffee. No denial, and no thanks, please! I won’t have the first, and I don’t want the last,” said the neighbor; and leaving her candle with the other, to make the room more cheerful, she went back to her own apartment.
Will Harcourt certainly felt soothed and comforted by the homely kindliness of his neighbor, and even supported by the motherly authority she assumed over him. He went and lay down as she had bid him do.
Soon he heard her stirring about around her stove in the next room, humming in a low tone a popular school song:
“Sing at your work, ’twill lighten
The labors of the day;
Sing at your work, ’twill brighten