g love, and clover, and blue sky.

When she reached the river, curving around the meadow, brown and shallow
in the midsummer droughts, she saw that the big locust was long past
blossoming, but some elderberry bushes, in full bloom, made the air
heavy with acrid perfume; the grass, starred by daisies, and with here
and there a clump of black-eyed Susans, was ready for mowing, and was
tugging at its anchoring roots, blowing, and bending, and rippling in
the wind, just as it had that other day!... "And I sat right here, by
the tree," she said, "and he lay there--I remember the exact place. And
he took my hand--"

Her mind whirled like a merry-go-round: "Well, I knew he was hiding
something. I wish I had seen Doctor Nelson, and asked him where she
lives. I wonder if he's the Mortons' friend?... If I don't get that
yeast cake to Mary before lunch, she can't set the rolls.... Edith saw
her with a child five years ago. Why"--her mind stumbled still farther
back--"why, the very day Edith arrived in Mercer, Maurice had been
looking at some house in Medfield, where the tenant had a sick child.
That was why he was late in meeting Mrs. Houghton!... The child had
measles. I wish I had gone to see Doctor Nelson! Then I would have
known.... I can get some rolls at the bakery, and Mary needn't set them
for dinner. I sang 'O Spring.'" She put her hands over her face, but
there were no tears. "He kissed the earth, he was so happy. When did he
stop being happy? What made him stop?... I wonder if there are any
snakes here?--Oh, I _must_ think what to do!" Again her mind flew off at
so violent a tangent that she felt dizzy. "I didn't tell Mary what to
have for dinner.... He gave her his coat, that time when the boat
upset.... She was all painted, he said so." She picked three strands of
grass and began to braid them together: "He did that; he made the ring,
and put it over my wedding ring." Mechanically she opened her
pocketbook, and took out the little envelope, shabby now, with years of
being carried there. She lifted the flap, and looked at the crumbling
circle. Then she put it back again, carefully, and went on with her
toilsome thinking: "I'll tell him I know that he went to see the Dale
woman. ... He said we had been married fifty-four minutes. It's eight
years and one month. He thinks I'm old. Well, I am. That woman in the
car thought I was her mother's age, and _she_ must have been thirty! Why
did he stop loving me? He hates Mary's