She did not even tell Asaph about it the next day. A week later he asked her if Crawford had spoken to her. She said that he had mentioned the subject, but that, of course, she had refused to consider leaving the man who had done everything in the world for her. This shy announcement seemed to exert an immense effect on Asaph. He thanked her as if she had saved his life. And he stared at her more than ever. A few evenings later there was another ring at the Larrabee bell. This time Mrs. Larrabee showed no alarm except that she might be late to the door. It was Asaph! He was as sheepish as a boy. He said that it was kind of lonesome over to his house and, seeing their light, he kind of thought he’d drop round and be a little neighborly. Everybody was growing more neighborly nowadays. Once more Mrs. Larrabee vanished. As she sat in the dining-room, pretending to knit, she thought how good it was to have a man in the house. The rumble of a deep voice was so comfortable that she fell asleep long before Asaph could bring himself to going home. He had previously sought diversion in the society of some of the very young and very pretty salesgirls in his store, but he found that, for all their graces, their prattle bored him. They talked all about themselves or their friends. Debby talked to Asaph about Asaph. He and she had been children together–they were of the same generation; she was a sensible woman, and she had learned much at the counter-school. He got to dropping round right often. That long-silent door bell became a thing to listen for of evenings. Jim Crawford dropped round now and then; the elderly floor-walker at Shillaber’s dropped round one night and talked styles and fabrics and gossip in a cackling voice. When he had left, the matchmaker’s instinct led Mrs. Larrabee to warn Debby not to waste her time on him. "Two old maids talkin’ at once is more’n I can stand." Three times that year Newt Meldrum was in town and called on Deborah. She asked him to supper once, and he simply raved over the salt-rising biscuits and the peach-pusserves. After supper he asked if he might smoke. That was the last word in masculine possession. If frankincense and myrrh had been shaken about the room Debby and Mrs. Larrabee could not have cherished them as they did the odor of tobacco in the curtains next day. Mrs. Larrabee cried a little. Her husband had smoked. Deborah was only now passing through the stages the average woman travels in her teens and early twenties, Deborah was having callers. Sometimes two men came at once and tried to freeze each other out. And finally she had a proposal!–from Asaph!–from Josie’s and Birdaline’s Asaph! They had left him alone with Debby once too often. CHAPTER VIII