mbrose Webb's farm. Besides, you have a
dark shade of the blues, my dear; and this remedy is capital for
the blues. You have but to sip a glass slowly--and where are
they?" And she hastened into the house.

She returned with two glasses of cool buttermilk.

The words and the deed were characteristic of one of the most
wholesome women that ever helped to straighten out a crooked and to
cool a feverish world. Miss Anna's very appearance allayed
irritation and became a provocation to good health, to good sense.
Her mission in life seemed not so much to distribute honey as to
sprinkle salt, to render things salubrious, to enable them to keep
their tonic naturalness. Not within the range of womankind could
so marked a contrast have been found for Harriet as in this maiden
lady of her own age, who was her most patient friend and who
supported her clinging nature (which still could not resist the
attempt to bloom) as an autumn cornstalk supports a frost-nipped
morning-glory.

If words of love had ever been whispered into Miss Anna's ear, no
human being knew it now: but perhaps her heart also had its under
chamber sealed with tears. Women not even behind her back jested
at her spinsterhood; and when that is true, a miracle takes place
indeed. No doubt Miss Anna was a miracle, not belonging to any
country, race, or age; being one of those offerings to the world
which nature now and then draws from the deeps of womanhood: a pure
gift of God.

The two old maids drained their rectifying beverage in the shady
porch. Whether from Miss Anna's faith in it or from the simple
health-giving of her presence, Harriet passed through a process of
healing; and as she handed back the empty glass, she smiled
gratefully into Miss Anna's sparkling brown eyes. Nature had been
merciful to her in this, that she was as easily healed as wounded.
She now returned to the subject which had so irritated her, as we
rub pleasantly a spot from which a thorn has been extracted.

"What do I care?" she said, straightening her hat as if to complete
her recovery. "But if there is one thing that can make me angry,
Anna, it is the middle-aged, able-bodied unmarried men of this
town. They are perfectly, _perfectly_ contemptible."

"Oh, come now!" cried Miss Anna, "I am too old to talk about such
silly things myself; but what does a woman care whether she is
married or not if she has had offers? And you have had plenty of
good offers, my dear."