She had not changed much.

Her face, shaded by her long curls, had that same soft droop as of a faded flower.

Once past her bloom of the flesh, there was, in a woman so little beset by storms of the spirit as Belinda Lamb, little further change possible until she dropped entirely from her tree of life.

She looked at Jerome with the amiable light of a smile rather than a smile itself, and said, with her old, weak, but clinging pounce upon disturbing trifles, "Why, Jerome, you 'ain't been all this time gettin' to Dale an' back ?" "I didn't hurry," replied Jerome, coldly, drawing a chair up to the supper-table.

He had always a sensation of nervous impatience with this mild, negatively sweet woman which he could not overcome, though he felt shamed by it.