Eleanor was deeply impressed by what she read and was also acutely conscious of the world about her. She had vivid impressions of each detail of the landscape before the door; of the smooth, concave fields rising to the blue hills, which rose in turn to mountains of paler blue; of the winding stream with its accompanying mists; of the journeying sun with its single moment of rest through all the year in a deep cradle in the southwestern ridge; of the distant, dim sound of the train which made its way along the next valley with rhythmic thunder; of the peace of quiet afternoons and evenings; of the changing light. She had not yet, though she was graduating from college, begun to observe or to understand the sorrows or sufferings of human beings or the strange complexities and thwartings of human life. She lived within herself without speculating about other people, even about the life so close to her, to which she was so thoroughly accustomed that its shrinking, its various and inconsistent characteristics, did not seem strange to her. In her eighth year she followed to the cemetery the funeral of the father of one of her schoolmates, and saw from a distance his widow throw herself upon his coffin. She pictured thenceforth her mother in the same situation and regarded her with tender awe. In only one respect did she fear her mother. The dreadful "them there" was pruned out of her own speech by Dr. Green's continued admonitions and, having learned her lesson, she proceeded to pass it on. "Mother, you must not say 'them there.' Dr. Green says that it is outlandish talk." Mrs. Bent rose from her place at one side of the little table. Her eyes looked no more wild when Eleanor was brought home to her bleeding. "Don't you dare to tell your mother how to talk! That is a dreadful sin, a dreadful, dreadful sin!" Eleanor burst into tears; her mother did not stay to comfort her, but went upstairs to her room and there remained until Eleanor started to school. Eleanor heard her talking to herself, heard her pacing back and forth, and did not dare to go to her. It was only after many days that their old pleasant relations were restored. Eleanor and her mother went nowhere to pay social visits and few persons came into their little house. They were so situated with reference to their nearest neighbors that either the making of a long journey or the scaling of a sharp picket fence was a necessary preliminary to the borrowing of a lemon or a recipe. The nearest neighbor, who often needed lemons, had suggested a gate through the common fence, but it had never been cut.