Now, the natives of Gschaid rarely leave their valley, as has been remarked--hardly even traveling to Millsdorf from which they are separated by customs as well as by mountain-ridges; besides, it never happens that a man leaves his valley to settle in a neighboring one--though settlements at greater distances do take place; neither does a woman or a girl like to emigrate from one valley into another, except in the rather rare cases when she follows her love and as wife joins her husband in another valley. So it happened that the dyer's daughter from Millsdorf was ever considered a stranger by all the people of Gschaid, even after she had become the shoemaker's wife; and although they never did her any ill, ay, even loved her on account of her beautiful ways, yet they always seemed to keep their distance, or, if you will, showed marked consideration for her, and never became intimate or treated her as their equal, as men and women of Gschaid did men and women of their own valley. Thus matters stood and remained, and were not mended by the better dress and the lighter domestic duties of the shoemaker's wife. At the end of the first year, she had born to her husband a son, and several years afterward, a daughter. She believed, however, that he did not love his children as she thought he ought to, and as she knew she loved them herself; for his face was mostly serious and he was chiefly concerned with his work. He rarely fondled or played with the children and always spoke seriously to them as one does to adults. With regard to food and clothes, and other material things, his care for them was above reproach.