Harriet saw; and she walked up and took the dagger by the handle and twisted it to the right and to the left and drove it in deeper and was glad.
"How do you like this dress, Anna?" she inquired with the sweetest solicitude. "Ah, there is no one like a friend to bring you to your senses! You were right. I am too old to change, too old to dress, too old even to read: thank you, Anna, as always."
Many a wound of friendship heals, but the wounder and the wounded are never the same to each other afterward. So that the two comrades were ill at ease and welcomed a diversion in the form of a visitor. It happened to be the day of the week when Miss Anna received her supply of dairy products from the farm of Ambrose Webb. He came round to the side entrance now with two shining tin buckets and two lustreless eyes.
The old maids stood on the edge of the porch with their arms wrapped around each other, and talked to him with nervous gayety. He looked up with a face of dumb yearning at one and then at the other, almost impartially.
"Aren't you well, Mr. Webb?" inquired Miss Anna, bending over toward him with a healing smile.
"Certainly I am well," he replied resentfully. "There is nothing the matter with me. I am a sound man."
"But you were certainly groaning," insisted Miss Anna, "for I heard you; and you must have been groaning about something."
He dropped his eyes, palpably crestfallen, and scraped the bricks with one foot.
Harriet nudged Miss Anna not to press the point and threw herself gallantly into the breach of silence.
"I am coming out to see you sometime, Mr. Webb," she said threateningly; "I want to find out whether you are taking good care of my calf. Is she growing?"