And this impression did not leave her when she was out on the street mingling with the homeward people; every greeting of an old neighbor strengthened it.

She regarded the peaceful village houses with their yards full of new green grass and flowering bushes, and they seemed to have a receding dimness as she neared some awful shore.

Even the click of her own gate as she opened it, the sound of her own feet on the path, the feel of the door-latch to her hand--all the little common belongings of her daily life were turned into so many stationary landmarks to prove her own retrogression and fill her with horror.
To-day, when people inquired for Lois, her mother no longer gave her customary replies.

She said openly that her daughter was real miserable, and she was worried about her.
"I guess she's beginning to realize it," the women whispered to each other with a kind of pitying triumph.

For there is a certain aggravation in our friends' not owning to even those facts which we deplore for them.