She had
been just sixty years of age when Willie Spence's sister had died and
left him alone in the wee cottage on the Harbor Road, and all Wilton
had begun to speculate as to what was to become of him. Willie was as
dependent as an infant; the village gossips who knew everything knew
that. From childhood he had been looked after,--first by his mother,
then by his aunt, and lastly by his sister; and when death had removed
in succession all three of these props, leaving the little old man at
last face to face with life, his startled blue eyes had grown large
with terror. What was to become of him now? Not only did Willie
himself helplessly raise the interrogation but so did all Wilton.
Of course he could go and board with the Eldridges but that would mean
renting or selling the silver-gray cottage where he had dwelt since
birth and would be a tragic severing of all ties with the past;
moreover, and a fact more potent than all the rest, it would mean
dismantling the house of the web that for years he had spun, the
symbols of dreams that had been his chief delight.
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