But Anne had never had another lover . There had to be an old maid in every big family she said , and she was not going to marry Jerome Irving just for the sake of having Mrs. on her tombstone . Old Esek and his wife had been put away in the Deep Meadows burying-ground . The broad , fertile Stockard acres passed into Anne 's possession . She was a good business-woman , and the farm continued to be the best in the district . She kept two hired men and a servant girl , and the sixteen-year-old of her oldest sister lived with her . There were few visitors at the Stockard place now , but Jerome `` dropped in '' every Saturday night with clockwork regularity and talked to Anne about her stock and advised her regarding the rotation of her crops and the setting out of her orchards . And at ten o'clock he would take his hat and cane and tell Anne to be good to herself , and go home . Anne had long since given up trying to discourage him ; she even accepted attentions from him now that she had used to refuse . He always walked home with her from evening meetings and was her partner in the games at quilting parties . It was great fun for the young folks . `` Old Jerome and Anne '' were a standing joke in Deep Meadows . But the older people had ceased to expect anything to come of it . Anne laughed at Jerome as she had always done , and would not have owned for the world that she could have missed him . Jerome was useful , she admitted , and a comfortable friend ; and she would have liked him well enough if he would only omit that ridiculous yearly ceremony of proposal . It was Jerome 's fortieth birthday when Anne refused him again . He realized this as he went down the road in the moonlight , and doubt and dismay began to creep into his heart . Anne and he were both getting old -- there was no disputing that fact . It was high time that he brought her to terms if he was ever going to . Jerome was an easy-going mortal and always took things placidly , but he did not mean to have all those fifteen years of patient courting go for nothing He had thought Anne would get tired of saying no , sooner or later , and say yes , if for no other reason than to have a change ; but getting tired did not seem to run in the Stockard blood .
She had said no that night just XXXXX coolly and decidedly and unsentimentally as she said it fifteen years before .
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