in the most unforeseen little ways, at the most unexpected times;
usually through those coincidences of somebody's knowing somebody else,
perhaps meeting someone from a former place where they had already
"heard"; it was as if the haphazardness of life, those little accidents
of meetings that were without design, equipped the world with a powerful
service for "hearing," which after a time made it impossible for people
to feel that what was known in one place would not come to be known in
another. After she had several times been hurt by the drawing away of
people whom she had grown to like, she herself drew back where she could
not be so easily hurt. And so it came about that her personality changed
in that; from an outgoing nature she came to be one who held back, shut
herself in. Even people who had never "heard" had the feeling she did
not care to know them, that she wanted to be let alone. It crippled her
power for friendship; it hurt her spirit. And it left her very much
alone. In that loneliness she wondered if there were not those other
people--people who could "hear" and not draw away. She had not found
them; perhaps she had at times been near them and in her holding
back--not knowing, afraid--had let them go by. Of that, too, she had
wondered; there had been many lonely wonderings.

She came now to a corner where she stopped. She stood looking down that
cross street which was shaded by elm trees. That was the corner where
she had always turned for Edith's. Yes, that was the way she used to go.
She stood looking down the old way. She wanted to go that way now!

She went so far as to cross the street, and on that far corner again
stood still, hesitating, wanting to go that old way. It came to her that
if this other girl--Annie Morris--a girl she could barely remember, was
glad to see her back, then surely Edith--_Edith_--would be glad to see
her. But after a moment she went slowly on--the other way. She
remembered; remembered the one letter she had had from Edith--that
letter of a few lines sent in reply to her two letters written from
Arizona, trying to make Edith understand.

"Ruth"--Edith had written--she knew the few words by heart; "Yes, I
received your first letter. I did not reply to it because it did not
seem to me there was anything for me to say. And it does not seem to me
now that there is anything for me to say." It was signed, "Edith
Lawrence Blair." The full signature had seemed even more formal