The two had animated talks, and once when her new acquaintance suggested, "I'd be so glad if I could be of some help in your shopping," Ethel replied, "Oh, you could! I'd love to have you!" And they started in that day.
And yet how curious, even here.

For whenever Ethel endeavoured to get the conversation upon a little more intimate terms, Mrs.Grewe would almost instantly become evasive and remote.

And once when Ethel asked her to "drop down and have dinner with us some night," she declined almost with a start, as though she were saying, "Ha! Look out! I'm in danger of letting you be a real friend!" And thinking this over, Ethel reflected, "The only New Yorker I've met so far, whom I'd like to know, is nice to me simply because she is going abroad in a month and so it's safe! Has she offered to introduce me to a single friend of hers?
Well, then, don't! Keep your old friends! I don't want to eat them!" And for days together she would leave the young widow alone.
But the latter would make pleasant advances, and soon they would be shopping again.

This acquaintance was one of the few bright spots in a season which for Ethel was full of anxious worries.

For it was by no means easy.