The streets of the little town still slept in the peace of the late winter dawn. The snow had been swept from the middle of the road into heaps along the gutter. A party of crows sat in a circle round the frozen fountain in the market-place. From the distance came the faint music of sleigh-bells. Down the main street boys with satchels were loitering to school. In some of the smaller shops lights still burned and apprentices were sweeping and cleaning the steps, their faces blue with cold. As Lilly went by they stared hard, or called to others inside to come out and gape after her. The swinging tread of marching footsteps was behind her. A long train of infantry, wearing gloves but without cloaks, came tramping along in the middle of the road. They puffed, in regular time, clouds of frozen breath before them. Their eyes with one accord turned to the left in Lilly's direction as if by word of command. The officers, walking beside their men, exchanged significant glances and shrugged their shoulders. She had not far to look for the Catholic church of the parish. The clumsy stone fabric, with its remnants of Gothic bricked over, stood high above the roofs of the town. The side aisles were crammed with altars in barbaric colours, much gilded and adorned with paper roses in cheap vases. She could not find St. Joseph anywhere, and had to be content instead with Our Lady of Sorrows, between whom and herself relations seemed strained. A feeling of oppression and emptiness, which she could not explain, took possession of her soul. It was as if she had done something wrong and didn't know what. She kneeled down and gabbled her prayers so thoughtlessly that she felt ashamed, then she caught herself absently eyeing with contentment her _suede_ gloves, which moulded her fingers with such perfect ease and distinction. Every now and then a shudder ran through her, which made her shut her eyes and clench her teeth, and then she felt ashamed again. Soon she gave up attempting to pray, and gazed up at the Mother of God, with her tearful face, who appeared to be saying, "Please take these things out of me." Yet the seven swords piercing her heart were set at the hilt with pearls and precious stones. "If only I was really unhappy, I should have some excuse," thought Lilly. "Then I might talk with her as I used to with St. Joseph, and the swords in my heart would be costly to behold." As costly as the pearl necklace he had put round her neck just before the wedding. She saw herself as she had been two months ago, when she had stolen out in the grey dawn to lay her poor distraught heart at the feet of her favourite saint; how soon, with the reaction of youth, she had walked on air again, intoxicated at the thought of what was coming to her in the fair future. And all the time she had been actually steeped in poverty and wretchedness, forsaken and friendless.