`` But you will love me in spite of it all , wo n't you , Sylvia ? And you will come to see me sometimes ? And write me after you go away ? '' `` I am coming to see you every day , '' said Sylvia . `` I am going to stay in Spencervale for a whole year yet , just to be near you . And next year when I go to Europe -- thanks to you , fairy godmother -- I 'll write you every day . We are going to be the best of chums , and we are going to have a most beautiful year of comradeship ! '' The Old Lady smiled contentedly . Out in the kitchen , the minister 's wife , who had brought up a dish of jelly , was talking to Mrs. Spencer about the Sewing Circle . Through the open window , where the red vines hung , came the pungent , sun-warm October air . The sunshine fell over Sylvia 's chestnut hair like a crown of glory and youth . `` I do feel so perfectly happy , '' said the Old Lady , with a long , rapturous breath . III . Each In His Own Tongue The honey-tinted autumn sunshine was falling thickly over the crimson and amber maples around old Abel Blair 's door . There was only one outer door in old Abel 's house , and it almost always stood wide open . A little black dog , with one ear missing and a lame forepaw , almost always slept on the worn red sandstone slab which served old Abel for a doorstep ; and on the still more worn sill above it a large gray cat almost always slept . Just inside the door , on a bandy-legged chair of elder days , old Abel almost always sat . He was sitting there this afternoon -- a little old man , sadly twisted with rheumatism ; his head was abnormally large , thatched with long , wiry black hair ; his face was heavily lined and swarthily sunburned ; his eyes were deep-set and black , with occasional peculiar golden flashes in them . A strange looking man was old Abel Blair ; and as strange was he as he looked . Lower Carmody people would have told you .
Old Abel was almost always sober XXXXX these , his later years .
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