"Until everything's taken away there isn't room to _see_ that he's there." When Catty came in with the lamp Aunt Lavvy went out quickly. Mary got up and stretched herself. The pain had left off hammering. She could think. Aunt Lavvy--to live like that for thirty-three years and to be happy at the end. She wondered what happiness there could be in that dull surrender and acquiescence, that cold, meek love of God. "Kikeriküh! sie glaubten Es wäre Hahnen geschrei." XXIV I. Everybody in the village knew you had been jilted. Mrs. Waugh and Miss Frewin knew it, and Mr. Horn, the grocer, and Mr. Oldshaw at the bank. And Mr. Belk, the Justice of the Peace--little pink and flaxen gentleman, carrying himself with an air of pompous levity--eyes slewing round as you passed; and Mrs. Belk--hard, tight rotundity, little iron-grey eyes twinkling busily in a snub face, putty-skinned with a bilious gleam; curious eyes, busy eyes saying, "I'd like to know what she did to be jilted." Minna and Sophy Acroyd, with their blown faces and small, disgusted mouths: you could see them look at each other; they were saying, "Here's that awful girl again." They were glad you were jilted. Mr. Spencer Rollitt looked at you with his hard, blue eyes. His mouth closed tight with a snap when he saw you coming. He had disapproved of you ever since you played hide-and-seek in his garden with his nephew. He thought it served you right to be jilted. And there was Dr. Charles's kind look under his savage, shaggy eyebrows, and Miss Kendal's squeeze of your hand when you left her, and the sudden start in Dorsy Heron's black hare's eyes. They were sorry for you because you had been jilted. Miss Louisa Wright was sorry for you. She would ask you to tea in her little green-dark drawing-room; she lived in the ivy house next door to Mrs. Waugh; the piano would be open, the yellow keys shining; from the white title page enormous black letters would call to you across the room: "Cleansing Fires." That was the song she sang when she was thinking about Dr. Charles. First you played for her the Moonlight Sonata, and then she sang for you with a feverish exaltation: "For as gold is refined in the _fi_-yer, So a heart is tried by pain." She sang it to comfort you. Her head quivered slightly as she shook the notes out of her throat in ecstasy. She was sorry for you; but she was like Aunt Lavvy; she thought it was a good thing to be jilted; for then you were purified; your soul was set free; it went up, writhing and aspiring, in a white flame to God. II. "Mary, why are you always admiring yourself in the glass?" "I'm not admiring myself. I only wanted to see if I was better-looking than last time." "Why are you worrying about it? You never used to." "Because I used to think I was pretty."