Being unused to the ways of sick women, he wondered as the train ran down the descent from the Allegheny Mountains how long a time was required to know any human being entirely.

He had been introduced within two weeks to two Ann Penhallows besides the Ann he had lived with these many years.

He concluded, as others have done, that people are hard to understand, and thus thinking he ran over in mind the group they left on the platform at Westways Crossing.
There was Billy--apparently a simple character, abruptly capable of doing unexpected things; useful to-day, useless tomorrow.

He called up to mind the very competent doctor; John, and his friend--the moody clergyman--beloved of all men.

The doctor had said of him, "a man living in the monastery of himself--in our world, but not of it." "What amuses you, James ?" asked his wife.
This good sign of return to her normal curiosity was familiarly pleasant.
"I was recalling, Ann, what McGregor said of Rivers after that horrid time of sickness at Westways.