he post-office," said Lois, rising; "the train's in. I
heard the whistle."

The village street lay very empty, this brown November day; and so, to
Lois's fancy, lay the prospect of the winter. Even so; brown and
lightless, with a chill nip in the air that dampened rather than
encouraged energy. She was young and cheery-tempered; but perhaps there
was a shimmer yet in her memory of the colours on the Isles of Shoals;
at any rate the village street seemed dull to her and the day
forbidding. She walked fast, to stir her spirits. The country around
Shampuashuh is flat; never a hill or lofty object of any kind rose upon
her horizon to suggest wider look-outs and higher standing-points than
her present footing gave her. The best she could see was a glimpse of
the distant Connecticut, a little light blue thread afar off; and I
cannot tell why, what she thought of when she saw it was Tom Caruthers.
I suppose Tom was associated in her mind with any wider horizon than
Shampuashuh street afforded. Anyhow, Mr. Caruthers' handsome face came
be fore her; and a little, a very little, breath of regret escaped her,
because it was a face she would see no more. Yet why should she wish to
see it? she asked herself. Mr. Caruthers could be nothing to her; he
_never_ could be anything to her; for he knew not and cared not to know
either the joys or the obligations of religion, in which Lois's whole
life was bound up. However, though he could be nothing to her, Lois had
a woman's instinctive perception that she herself was, or had been,
something to him; and that is an experience a simple girl does not
easily forget. She had a kindness for him, and she was pretty sure he
had more than a kindness for her, or would have had, if his sister had
let him alone. Lois went back to her Appledore experiences, revolving
and studying them, and understanding them a little better now, she
thought, than at the time. At the time she had not understood them at
all. It was just as well! she said to herself. She could never have
married him. But why did his friends not want him to marry her? She was
in the depths of this problem when she arrived at the post-office.

The post-office was in the further end of a grocery store, or rather a
store of varieties, such as country villages find convenient. From
behind a little lattice the grocer's boy handed her a letter, with the
remark that she was in luck to-day. Lois recognized Mrs. Wishart's
hand, and half questione