We never saw Miss Ponsonby anywhere else ; we asked her to come over but she said her father did n't allow her to visit anybody . Miss Ponsonby was one of those meek women who are ruled by whomsoever happens to be nearest them , and woe be unto them if that nearest happen to be a tyrant . Her meekness fairly infuriated Jerry . But we liked Miss Ponsonby and we pitied her . She confided to us that she was very lonely and that she wrote poetry . We never asked to see the poetry , although I think she would have liked to show it . But , as Jerry says , there are limits . We told Miss Ponsonby all about our dances and picnics and beaus and pretty dresses ; she was never tired of hearing of them ; we smuggled new library novels -- Jerry got our cook to buy them -- and boxes of chocolates , from our window to hers ; we sat there on moonlit nights and communed with her while other girls down the street were entertaining callers on their verandahs ; we did everything we could for her except to call her Alicia , although she begged us to do so . But it never came easily to our tongues ; we thought she must have been born and christened Miss Ponsonby ; `` Alicia '' was something her mother could only have dreamed about her . We thought we knew all about Miss Ponsonby 's past ; but even pale , drab , china-blue women can have their secrets and keep them . It was a full half year before we discovered Miss Ponsonby 's . * * * * * In October , Stephen Shaw came home from the west to visit his father and mother after an absence of fifteen years . Jerry and I met him at a party at his brother-in-law 's . We knew he was a bachelor of forty-five or so and had made heaps of money in the lumber business , so we expected to find him short and round and bald , with bulgy blue eyes and a double chin . On the contrary , he was a tall , handsome man with clear-cut features , laughing black eyes like a boy 's , and iron-grey hair . That iron-grey hair nearly finished Jerry ; she thinks there is nothing so distinguished and she had the escape of her life from falling in love with Stephen Shaw . He was as gay as the youngest , danced splendidly , went everywhere , and took all the Glenboro girls about impartially . It was rumoured that he had come east to look for a wife but he did n't seem to be in any particular hurry to find her . One evening he called on Jerry ; that is to say , he did ask for both of us , but within ten minutes Jerry had him mewed up in the cosy corner to the exclusion of all the rest of the world . I felt that I was a huge crowd , so I obligingly decamped upstairs and sat down by my window to `` muse , '' as Miss Ponsonby would have said .
It was a glorious moonlight night , XXXXX just a hint of October frost in the air -- enough to give sparkle and tang .
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