She sat down on the oak stump quite near him and there was more than pity in her eyes, only he did not see. "Why," she advised gently, "you must have a dog at once. I can give you a wonderful collie and then on gray days you can bring him up here to your hill top or go tramping through woods and ravines with him. A dog is the finest kind of company for a gray day. And there is your attic. Why, I always spend hours in my attic these still, gentle days. I go up there to read old letters and look over old boxes full of queer keepsakes. I sit in a three-legged chair and sometimes, if I find an old coverless book and if the rain begins to drum softly on the shingles, I go to sleep on an ancient sagging sofa and dream great dreams. Haven't you ransacked that attic of yours yet?" she wanted to know. "No. And the housekeeper insists on my doing it soon. Says that if I'm going to give Jimmy Trumbull that party I promised him I'd better have the barn and the attic all fixed up for it, because the boys wouldn't have any fun in the house and the house wouldn't stand it any better." And then because neither one of them could think of anything else to say they were perfectly still there on the hill top. There seemed to be no need for speech. Nanny looked down at the little town and Cynthia's son lay contentedly at her feet, looking at her and rustling the dead leaves with an idle hand. It might have become dangerous, that contented silence. For Nan at least was thinking. She was thinking how often she came to the hill top to visit with this man at her feet and how seldom he came to her door to visit with her. When he came it was not to see her but her father, her brother. With a sick shame Nanny thought how the sight of him, the sound of his voice, the very mention of his name made her heart fill with warm gladness. She loved him and he had no need of love--her love. She who had turned men away, men who were-- She rose suddenly. There was a kind of terror in her eyes and she locked her hands together to warm them, for they had suddenly grown icy cold. "I must go," she murmured in real distress. But he just looked up and put out his hand. And she sat down again and let her hand rest in his. And half her joy was pure misery. For she did not understand the ways of this strange, boyish man and she did not know what the end of such a friendship could be. When those first angry drops pattered down on the leaves Nanny started up in alarm and would have raced for home. But he caught her quickly, slipped her cloak on, and before she had time to protest, they were running hand in hand down the hillside. Just as the full fury of the storm struck the house they banged the front door shut and stood panting and laughing in the hall.