to be with her and to try
to make her feel the change he believed had taken place
in his nature.

As for Helen White, she also had come to a period of
change. What George felt, she in her young woman's way
felt also. She was no longer a girl and hungered to
reach into the grace and beauty of womanhood. She had
come home from Cleveland, where she was attending
college, to spend a day at the Fair. She also had begun
to have memories. During the day she sat in the
grand-stand with a young man, one of the instructors
from the college, who was a guest of her mother's. The
young man was of a pedantic turn of mind and she felt
at once he would not do for her purpose. At the Fair
she was glad to be seen in his company as he was well
dressed and a stranger. She knew that the fact of his
presence would create an impression. During the day she
was happy, but when night came on she began to grow
restless. She wanted to drive the instructor away, to
get out of his presence. While they sat together in the
grand-stand and while the eyes of former schoolmates
were upon them, she paid so much attention to her
escort that he grew interested. "A scholar needs money.
I should marry a woman with money," he mused.

Helen White was thinking of George Willard even as he
wandered gloomily through the crowds thinking of her.
She remembered the summer evening when they had walked
together and wanted to walk with him again. She thought
that the months she had spent in the city, the going to
theaters and the seeing of great crowds wandering in
lighted thoroughfares, had changed her profoundly. She
wanted him to feel and be conscious of the change in
her nature.

The summer evening together that had left its mark on
the memory of both the young man and woman had, when
looked at quite sensibly, been rather stupidly spent.
They had walked out of town along a country road. Then
they had stopped by a fence near a field of young corn
and George had taken off his coat and let it hang on
his arm. "Well, I've stayed here in
Winesburg--yes--I've not yet gone away but I'm growing
up," he had said. "I've been reading books and I've
been thinking. I'm going to try to amount to something
in life.

"Well," he explained, "that isn't the point. Perhaps
I'd better quit talking."

The confused boy put his hand on the girl's arm. His
voice trembled. The two started to walk back along the
road toward town. In his desperation George boasted,
"I'm going