This typical image of Ellen’s made Olivia laugh with pleasure, and reminded her to tell Ellen about one of the old women she had to call on, a particularly difficult old creature who said one day after complaining that she was lonely, “The trouble with me is I don’t wear well.”

And on that Olivia went out into the dark, to climb the hill homeward under the stars. She felt what being in Willard always did for her—stretched and rested at the same time. She took a deep breath of the damp, chill air smelling of earth, wondered whether Christy and Old Pete were still at it in the shack, where a light burned now, and whether Cathy had taken comfort in burying her nose in the donkey’s fur up at the Lovelands’. How much Willard gives us, she thought, and how can we ever give it back?

CHRISTINA’S JOURNAL—December 2

Here I am again at last. Monday morning. Cornelius is still fast asleep. These last days have taken it out of him, but it was such a happy time! There was a moment after John, the last to go, finally took off yesterday when I could hardly bear to go into the silent house. No more thundering feet on the stairs, no fierce arguments going on in the study, no singing round the piano. I felt I was walking into some great gloomy cavern. Knee has been acting up, poor old thing. I feel compassion for this dying carcass of mine that really manages to serve very well, considering. Growing old is so strange because inside one feels just the same.

It’s a dark morning, looks and smells like snow. The children are so concerned about my staying here alone. If only I could make them understand how I look forward to it! But there is just a chance that Bruno can be persuaded to let Cathy come here for the spring term—she wants to badly—Olivia’s idea. How the nieces and nephews adore her! On Thanksgiving Day she and Cathy went off for a walk, and before that I heard her out on the porch surrounded by them. Ten years ago I grieved terribly that she was not married, grieved over those love affairs, bound to be unhappy. Now I feel somehow that she has come through into her own. It is wrong to believe that marriage is always the answer for every woman or man. Some people are just natural-born solitaries, and I think perhaps Olivia is one. She is, at any rate, greatly loved.