rive out with her mother, read to her, and
sit with her, and as they were so much together and shared the small
events of the country town, they were to a certain extent drawn
together. But Mrs. Symons always treated Henrietta _de haut en bas_,
and snubbed her when she thought necessary, as if she had been a child
of ten, so that Henrietta was constrained and a little timid with her.
There was the suggestion of a feeling that Mrs. Symons was to be pitied
for having Henrietta still on her hands. If Henrietta had refused to be
snubbed, there would have been none of that suggestion. Evelyn was still
away at school. There were a certain number of girls of Henrietta's age
whom she saw from time to time, but as her mother did not wish to be
disturbed by entertaining, they were not asked to the house, and
therefore did not ask Henrietta to theirs. Besides, she was sensitive,
thinking, truly, that they were discussing her misfortune, and did not
want to see them.

In addition to the poignancy of disappointment, of present dulness and
aimlessness, Henrietta realized forcibly, though perhaps not forcibly
enough for the truth, that the years between eighteen and thirty were
her marrying years, which, slowly as they passed from the point of view
of her happiness, went only too fast, when she considered that once gone
they could never come back, and that as they fled, they took her chances
with them.

Fifty years ago the large majority of the girls of her class married
early, and the years of home life after school were arranged on the
supposition that they were a short period of preparation for marriage.
It did not matter to Minna and Louie that they had no interests to fill
their days, that their life had been nothing but parties and intervals
of waiting for parties, because it had only lasted four or five years.
It had done what it was intended to do, it had settled them very
comfortably with husbands. But with Henrietta, the condition which was
meant to be temporary, seemed spreading itself out to be permanent, and
with the parties taken away, she was hard put to it to fill up her days.
She longed inexpressibly for school, for its restrictions, its monotony
and variety. And to think that when she had the luck to be there, she
had counted the days to being a young lady. When she remembered how she
had almost wept at Miss Arundel's description of Joan of Arc, her mouth
watered for lessons. As for Miss Arundel herself, she hungere