ure, when Willie was choosing
'twixt flesh and spirit, that he saw Celestina Morton standing like a
vision in the sunshine that spangled his doorway. She said she knew
how lonely he must be and therefore she had come to make a friendly
call and tidy up the house or mend for him anything that needed
mending. With this simple introduction she had taken off her hat and
coat, donned an ample blue-and-white pinafore, and set to work.
Fascinated Willie watched her deft movements. Now and then she smiled
at him but she did not speak and neither did he; nor, he noticed, did
she disturb his strings or comment on their inconvenience. When
twilight came and the hour for her departure drew near Willie stationed
himself before the peg from which dangled her shabby wraps and
stubbornly refused to have her hat and cloak removed from the nail.
There, figuratively speaking, they had hung ever since, the inventor
reasoning that life without this paragon of capability was a wretched
and profitless adventure.

In justifying his sudden decision to Janoah Eldridge, Willie had merely
explained that he had hired Celestina because she was so comfortable to
have around, a recommendation at which Wilton would have jeered but
which, perhaps, in the eyes of the Lord was quite as praiseworthy as
that which her more hidebound but less accommodating sisters could have
boasted. For disorder and confusion never kept Celestina awake nights
or prevented her from partaking of three hearty meals a day as it would
have Abbie Brewster or Deborah Howland. So long as things were clean,
their being an inch or two, or even a foot, out of plumb did not worry
the new inmate of the gray house an iota. And when Willie was balked
in an "idee" that had "kitched him," and left half-a-dozen strings and
wires swinging in mid-air for weeks together, Celestina would patiently
duck her head as she passed beneath them and offer no protest more
emphatic than to remark:

"Them strings hangin' down over the sink snare me every time I wash a
dish. Ain't you calculatin' ever to take 'em down, Willie?"

The reply vouchsafed would be as mild as the suggestion:

"I reckon they ain't there for eternity, Tiny," the inventor would
respond. "Like as not both you an' me will live to see 'em out of the
way."

That was all the satisfaction Celestina would get from her feeble
complaints; it was all she ever got. Yet in spite of the exasperating
response she adored Willie who