"It's all I have," was the reply. "I don't look at it much nowadays."
"I get tired of looking at the same old hat, but I never get used to the old river somehow; but perhaps it isn't quite enough company all by itself. Of course there's the trees."
"They ain't leaved out the year round," said Miss Roxy.
"No-o-o. But you're sure they will 'leave out.'" All this time Rebecca had stolen little side glances at Miss Roxy. "I suppose you read when you're not doing house-work?" she ventured.
"I've read all my books over and over so I just set an' think!" And Miss Roxy's eyes wandered from Rebecca, as if she had already outlived the experience of meeting a new face and hearing a new voice.
"Well, all I was going to say is," said Rebecca, rising to her feet at this warning signal, "that there was a very sick lady, sick and lame and old, that lived half a mile from our farm, and mother always had me go over and tell her the news once or twice a week. Mother says everybody ought to know what's going on, or they get lonesome. I've come away from that lady so I think I'd better take you in her place if you'd like to have me. There's such a lot happens down our way—awfully interesting things, too—that I could reel it off by the yard this minute, only you seem tired. And I've got two books of my own to lend you, so I'll come soon again if Aunt Miranda'll let me. Shall I?"
Rebecca's demeanor and tone were modest and innocent, but Miss Roxy felt herself in the grip of a master hand and feebly assented. "I don't mind if you do," she said, making an effort, and bringing her eyes back to the quaint, vivid little creature standing in front of her on the greensward. "Mebbe you'd liven me up."
"Oh, I would!" And Rebecca's tone was full of confidence. "Aunt Miranda says I'd stir up a cemetery; but that isn't a compliment. She doesn't like being stirred up; but I'd be real careful with you, being a stranger and not very well! Good-bye!" And Rebecca flew down the lane, her long, dark braids flying out behind her; while Miss Roxy, in spite of herself, rose to her feet by the rocking-chair and watched the child out of sight.
IV
There were many meetings after that. Sometimes Rebecca took one of the other girls and they carried a bouquet of wild flowers to put in a tumbler on the kitchen table, or some apples or berries or nuts that they had picked on the road; but it was easy to see that one caller at a time was all that Miss Roxy fancied. She had very little to eat and very little fuel, though she was known to receive ten dollars a month from a nephew in Salem, so that Riverboro was comfortably sure that she could not starve; and as for firewood, the same nephew had a load, all sawed and split, deposited in her shed twice a year. These mercies gave assurance of existence if not of luxury; and, anyway, Riverboro could not waste its time over an incurably sad, cold, strange, silent woman like Roxanna Lyman, even if her family had been one of the best in former years.