I ate my own supper, and I felt like a funeral was going on. It kills something in me to have young folks, or any folks, act like that. And when I went back in the parlor I saw him on the front porch again, smoking, and her on the side porch playing with the kitten. "It's the first death," I says. "It's their first kind of death. And I can't stand it a minute longer." So when I saw him start out pretty soon to go downtown alone--I went to my front gate and I called to him to come over. He came--a fine, close-knit chap he was, with the young not rubbed out of his face yet, and his eyes window-clear. "The catch on my closet-door don't act right," I says. "I wonder if you'll fix it for me?" He went up and done it, and I ran for the tools for him and tried to get my courage up. When he got through and came down I was sitting on my hall-tree. "Mr. Groom," I says--that was my name for him--"I hope you won't think I'm interfering _too_ much, but I want to speak to you serious about your wife." "Yes," he says, short. I went on, never noticing: "I dunno whether you've took it in, but there seems to be something wrong with her." "Wrong with her?" he says. "Yes, sir," I says. "And I dunno but awfully wrong. I've been noticing lately." (I didn't say _how_ lately.) "What do you mean?" says he, and sat down on the bottom step. "Don't you see," I says, "that she don't look well? She don't act no more like herself than I do. She hasn't," says I, truthful, "half the spirit to her to-day that she had when you first came here to the village." "Why--no," he says, "I hadn't noticed--" "You wouldn't," says I. "You wouldn't be likely to. But it seems to me that you ought to be warned--and be on your guard." "_Warned!_" he says, and I saw him get pale--I tell you I saw him get pale. "I'm not easy alarmed," I told him. "And when I see anything serious, it ain't in my power to stand aside and not say anything." "Serious," he says over. "Serious? But, Miss Marsh, can you give me any idea--" "I've give you a hint," says I, "that it's something you'd ought to be mighty careful about. I dunno's I can do much more; I dunno's I ought to do that. But if anything should happen--" "Good heavens!" he says. "You don't think she's that bad off?" "--if anything should happen," I went on, calm, "I didn't want to have myself to blame for not having spoke up in time. Now," says I, brisk, "you were just going downtown. And I've got a taste of jell I want to take over to her. So I won't keep you."