and
Helen was aghast at the presence of so many semblances of man.

It was dark in the shop, and the smell of fustian absorbed the air. The
owner, who wore an intricately-patterned tie, stood on the pavement and
talked to a friend, while a youth, pale through living in obscurity,
lured Helen in.

She gave her order: two pairs of corduroy trousers to be made for Mr.
Caniper of Brent Farm, to the same measurements as before: she wished to
see the stuff.

"If you'll take a seat, miss--"

She would rather stand outside the door, she said, and he agreed that
the day was warm.

The narrow street was thronged with people who were neither of the town
nor of the country, and suffered the disabilities of the hybrid. There
were few keen or beautiful faces, and if there were fine bodies they
were hidden under clumsy clothes. Helen wanted to strip them all, and
straighten them, and force them into health and comeliness, and though
she would not have her moor peopled by them, she wished they might all
have moors of their own.

The young man was very slow. She could hear him struggling with bales of
cloth and breathing heavily. It was much hotter here than on the moor,
and she supposed that human beings could grow accustomed to any smell,
but she stepped further towards the kerbstone and drew in what air the
street could spare to her.

Quite unconscious of her fairness against the dingy background, she
watched the moving people and heard the talk of the two men near her.
They spoke of the hay crop, the price of bacon, the mismanagement of the
gas company, and the words fell among the footsteps of the passers-by,
and the noise of wheels, and became one dull confusion of sound to her;
but all sounds fainted and most sights grew misty when she saw Zebedee
walking on the other side of the street, looking down as he went, but
bending an ear to the girl beside him.

Men and women flitted like shadows between him and Helen, but she saw
plainly enough. Zebedee was interested: he nodded twice, looked at the
girl and laughed, while she walked sideways in her eagerness. She was
young and pretty: no one, Helen thought, had ever married her.

The noise of the street rushed on her again, and she heard the shopman
say, "That's a case, I think. I've seen that couple about before. Time
he was married, too."

Slowly Helen turned a head, which felt stiff and swollen, to look at the
person who could say so. She restrained a desire to hold i