But, Min's bow was hardly sufficient to introduce me to her mother, even if people could be introduced from opposite sides of roads.

Thus it was that I remained a stranger to Mrs Clyde, and did not have a chance of meeting her daughter and talking to her, as I might have done if I could but have visited her at home.
I never was able to have a word with her now, never could hear her darling voice repeat my name in those soft accents I loved so well.

It was very hard--very hard, indeed! You see, I had ample reasons, beyond the requirements of mere social etiquette, for wishing to know Mrs Clyde.
Our suburb, you must know, was an extremely quiet place--"remote, unfriended, solitary, slow." Although everybody knew everybody, who happened to be anybody at all, there was not much of current sociability and party giving.

We were not sociable.

On the contrary, we were a very humdrum lot; rising early and going to town to our business and daily toil--such of us as had any sort of business to attend to--and coming back at a fixed regular hour.