Suggestions
Use up and down arrows to review and enter to select.Please wait while we process your payment
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
Please wait while we process your payment
By signing up you agree to our terms and privacy policy.
Don’t have an account? Subscribe now
Create Your Account
Sign up for your FREE 7-day trial
Already have an account? Log in
Your Email
Choose Your Plan
Save over 50% with a SparkNotes PLUS Annual Plan!
Purchasing SparkNotes PLUS for a group?
Get Annual Plans at a discount when you buy 2 or more!
Price
$24.99 $18.74 /subscription + tax
Subtotal $37.48 + tax
Save 25% on 2-49 accounts
Save 30% on 50-99 accounts
Want 100 or more? Contact us for a customized plan.
Your Plan
Payment Details
Payment Summary
SparkNotes Plus
You'll be billed after your free trial ends.
7-Day Free Trial
Not Applicable
Renews April 4, 2023 March 28, 2023
Discounts (applied to next billing)
DUE NOW
US $0.00
SNPLUSROCKS20 | 20% Discount
This is not a valid promo code.
Discount Code (one code per order)
SparkNotes Plus subscription is $4.99/month or $24.99/year as selected above. The free trial period is the first 7 days of your subscription. TO CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION AND AVOID BEING CHARGED, YOU MUST CANCEL BEFORE THE END OF THE FREE TRIAL PERIOD. You may cancel your subscription on your Subscription and Billing page or contact Customer Support at custserv@bn.com. Your subscription will continue automatically once the free trial period is over. Free trial is available to new customers only.
Choose Your Plan
For the next 7 days, you'll have access to awesome PLUS stuff like AP English test prep, No Fear Shakespeare translations and audio, a note-taking tool, personalized dashboard, & much more!
You’ve successfully purchased a group discount. Your group members can use the joining link below to redeem their group membership. You'll also receive an email with the link.
Members will be prompted to log in or create an account to redeem their group membership.
Thanks for creating a SparkNotes account! Continue to start your free trial.
Please wait while we process your payment
Your PLUS subscription has expired
Please wait while we process your payment
Please wait while we process your payment
On the first day of August, Bill Forrester and Douglas head downtown in Bill's car to get some ice cream. Bill orders old-fashioned lime-vanilla, and Miss Helen Loomis, age ninety-five, overhears and commends him on his choice. She recognizes Douglas as a Spaulding, and knows Bill as a newspaper reporter. Bill mentions that he knows who she is and that he was in love with her once. They get into a conversation, and she asks him to come by for tea the next day.
The following day Bill goes to Helen Loomis's house and they talk over tea. She tells him how she was young and foolish and how at age thirty the only man she cared for stopped waiting for her and married someone else. So then she traveled all around the world. He likes her, and says that interesting women like her are rare. She says that is because most men do not want a woman with a brain. Many women get good at hiding their intelligence. She asks him what he wants out of life, and Bill says that he wants to see many places. Helen Loomis has been to most of those places and so she tells him all about them. He sees her every day for over two weeks, and they have a very good time together.
Then one day she asks him how he was once in love with her. When he first came to the town he saw a picture of her in the paper the day of the town ball and he did not know that the photo was from 1853 and that the town published it every year before the ball. She tells him that he reminds her of the man who courted her seventy years ago. Near the end of August she gives him a letter and tells him that when he receives it, in a few days, she will be dead. She says that love is in the mind and that they had that together, even if their bodies were years apart. She tells him that he must not live too long (he is thirty-one years old now) because if he does then one day he will meet a young girl who reminds him of Helen Loomis. If he dies at a moderate age perhaps everything will come into balance and sometime in the future a young man will order an unusual ice cream and a young girl will appreciate his choice and that will be their happy end.
A few days later, Bill gets the letter in the mail, and he takes Douglas back to the store, where he reads the letter and orders lime-vanilla ice.
Tom, Douglas and Charlie are running and Douglas asks how come there are no happy endings. Tom says that what happened with Bill and Miss Loomis was the only happy ending there could have been. Charlie tells them to be quiet, because they are close to where they are going. They get to Summer's Ice House, the only cold place in the entire town, and Charlie tells them that only one man lives there, a man whose name alone scares everyone: the Lonely One.
Helen Loomis and Bill Forrester are a perfect match for each other. The only problem is that because of their ages it is impossible for them to be together any more than the afternoon tea that they spend with each other. Helen is intelligent, funny, and interesting, and Bill has never met another woman like her. Even though they are years apart, they are able to love each other through the mental bond that they share. Helen says that true love is of the mind, and the time that they spend together shows that she is right. True companionship is not that of the body but rather the ability to talk forever about things of interest with someone. But at the same time Helen knows that their romance is tragic, for two people who are so well matched should have met each other without the difference in their ages. She professes a belief in reincarnation. Not that she herself will meet Bill Forrester in some future time, but that that part of her that is so compatible with a certain part of him will be a part of some girl who will be drawn to a young man with Bill's characteristics. This is what she must hope for, because it is clear that there can be nothing more between them than what there is.
Please wait while we process your payment