His first astonishment gave place then to a mean and taunting look. He leered as she passed and said softly, “Well, I reckon you an’ Mis’ Bixby’s husband had a high old time together.” But she went by untouched, the insult blowing past her as lightly as a summer wind. The great experience through which she had passed had been out in the deep channel of the spirit. How could Ed Black know anything about it? How could any words of his even touch it, much less hurt her? She looked full at him as she passed, and in that instant of detached scrutiny she was conscious of a sudden stab of pity. For a moment she knew the man for what he was--a poor mean nature, destined always to inhabit the murky backwaters of life, incapable of ever striking out into the clear depths of any great emotion--a crippled bit of humanity never again to be afraid of or bullied by, only to be sorry for. “Poor Ed,” she thought, as she went down the platform and turned along the main street. The morning air touched her face refreshingly, there were drifts of great white clouds in the sky, and the mountains--the mountains that she had been born and brought up in! “I’ve come home, I’ve come home!” she whispered again. Coming up the street a little in advance of her, she presently perceived Brother Seabrook. He was pacing along abstractedly, his head bent over his newspaper, which he had just secured from the post office and which bore tall excited headlines about the war. A little distance away, conscious that some one was approaching, he glanced up, saw her, and stopped for one paralyzed instant. His hand went mechanically toward his hat, but he checked it and, thrusting it into his breast pocket, pretended to feel for something; then he faced abruptly round and hastened in the opposite direction, as though suddenly reminded of important business elsewhere. A little farther on Julie saw Mrs. Silas Randolph’s colored girl come out in the street to cross to the meat market. Suddenly she also saw Julie, and stopped in her tracks as had the others. She, however, attempted no subterfuge for her astonishment, but stood frankly still in the middle of the street, staring with her mouth open. Julie spoke to her as she passed, but the girl did not respond; after one more thorough stare, she turned and ran back across the street, stumbling under the excitement and haste of her news, turning her head back every now and again over her shoulder to be sure of what she had seen.