CHAPTER I.
Henry Whitman was walking home from the shop in the April afternoon.
The spring was very early that year.

The meadows were quite green, and in the damp hollows the green assumed a violet tinge--sometimes from violets themselves, sometimes from the shadows.

The trees already showed shadows as of a multitude of bird wings; the peach-trees stood aloof in rosy nimbuses, and the cherry-trees were faintly a-flutter with white through an intense gloss of gold-green.
Henry realized all the glory of it, but it filled him with a renewal of the sad and bitter resentment, which was his usual mood, instead of joy.

He was past middle-age.

He worked in a shoe-shop.