. She may to some extent
have brought it upon herself, for certain it was that she never kicked
against the pricks or tried to shape her circumstances more in
accordance with her liking. Undoubtedly had she accepted her lot less
meekly she might have commanded a greater measure of attention and
sympathy; still, if she had not been of a more or less plastic nature
and surrendered herself patiently to her destiny it is a question
whether she would have survived at all.

It was this mutability, this power to detach herself from her
environment and view it with the stoical indifference of a spectator
that caused Wilton with its harsh New England standards, to
characterize Celestina as "easy goin'." In fact, this popularly termed
"flaw" in her make-up was what had acted as an open sesame to every
door at which she knocked and had kept a roof above her head. 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. Should he go to the
Eldridges there could be no more inventing, for Jan's wife was a hard,
practical woman who had scant sympathy with Willie's "idees."
Nevertheless one redeeming consideration must not be lost sight of--she
was a famous cook, a very famous cook; and poor Willie, although he
cared little what he ate, was incapable of concocting any food at all.
But the strings, the strings! No, to go to live with Jan and Mrs.
Eldridge was not to be thought of.

It was just at this psychological junct