“When she got through with that, it was fall and she had never set eyes on no one but Hopeful and the doctor. She sent for her father, and in Hopeful’s presence she said she wanted to live the rest of her life at the Fincherie with Hopeful and Ali Baba as her servants and she never wanted to take part in the world again, that she was not crazy, she knew her own mind. But she had a broken heart and she could not bear to let the world see all she had suffered. “It ’most killed her pa—her hair had turned gray and she didn’t weigh more’n a handful—but she kept beggin’ him, and, finally, the doctor said time might change her, but it was no sense to argue with her now—so her father said she could stay there, and stay she has! It wasn’t long after that when her poor father died, but Miss Abby never went to the funeral nor shed a tear. Seems as if all the love and tears God gave her were spent on that rascal. She had the lawyer sell the town property and put the money in banks, and some of the furniture they sent on to the Fincherie, but she never let Ali Baba unpack it. And there she lived and there she lives—every day at four she drives in that old coupé with Ali Baba as the coachman. Outside of that, or maybe settin’ on the back balcony when it’s pretty hot weather, Miss Abby never shows herself. Nobody dares to go there neither. At first, the old friends tried to make her be herself, but she wouldn’t listen or even see ’em. She’s a sort of living death, like, wearin’ the same old clothes and stayin’ in her two front rooms year in and year out. Of course Hopeful has given up her life, you might say, to Miss Abby; she could have married many’s the time, but somehow she’s stayed faithful and so has Ali Baba. I guess it was meant to be so. Sometimes Miss Abby tries to thank Hopeful for all she’s done and she gives her presents of money—but she can’t never seem to take an interest in anything, and when it comes the anniversary of her weddin’, Hopeful says she unlocks her trunks and keeps tryin’ on all her weddin’ dresses and cryin’ soft and pitiful. The family lawyer has had doctors and doctors and mind-healers and faith-healers and all such people but nothing never done any good. She just lives in the house like a little old shadow, never hurtin’ no one and doin’ nothin’ wrong—sort of hauntin’ herself, that’s the best way to say it. She’s only fifty-five—but she seems seventy—sort of childish and sharp spoke, if things don’t go to suit, and she’s talkin’ of putting up a big wall around the house so’s nobody could even walk across the lawn.... Well, well, Thurley, so you got inside!” Philena’s hands were clasped in excitement. “Isn’t it sad, Granny?” she said. “I want to cry.” Thurley shook her head. “I don’t. I’d like to write a story about it and set it to music and rent a big hall. Then I’d have people pay to come in and hear me sing it to them and I’d rather make the people cry.”