She watched him and tended him and "babied" him as if he was a spoiled child, pretending to laugh at herself for doing it and at him for permitting it.

She cooked the dishes he liked best, she mended his clothes, she acted as a buffer between him and callers who came at inopportune times.

She was cheerful always when he was about, and no one would have surmised that she had a sorrow in the world.

But Ellery knew and she knew he knew, so the affection and mutual esteem between the two deepened.

He called her "Aunt Keziah" at her request and she continued to call him "John." This was in private, of course; in public he was "Mr.Ellery" and she "Mrs.Coffin." In his walks about town he saw nothing of Grace.