village lawyer of the previous generation, and "lawyer Varnum's
house," where my landlady still lived with her mother, was the most
considerable mansion in the village. It stood at one end of the main
street, its classic portico and small-paned windows looking down a
flagged path between Norway spruces to the slim white steeple of the
Congregational church. It was clear that the Varnum fortunes were at
the ebb, but the two women did what they could to preserve a decent
dignity; and Mrs. Hale, in particular, had a certain wan refinement
not out of keeping with her pale old-fashioned house.

In the "best parlour," with its black horse-hair and mahogany weakly
illuminated by a gurgling Carcel lamp, I listened every evening to
another and more delicately shaded version of the Starkfield
chronicle. It was not that Mrs. Ned Hale felt, or affected, any
social superiority to the people about her; it was only that the
accident of a finer sensibility and a little more education had put
just enough distance between herself and her neighbours to enable
her to judge them with detachment. She was not unwilling to exercise
this faculty, and I had great hopes of getting from her the missing
facts of Ethan Frome's story, or rather such a key to his character
as should co-ordinate the facts I knew. Her mind was a store-house
of innocuous anecdote and any question about her acquaintances
brought forth a volume of detail; but on the subject of Ethan Frome
I found her unexpectedly reticent. There was no hint of disapproval
in her reserve; I merely felt in her an insurmountable reluctance to
speak of him or his affairs, a low "Yes, I knew them both... it was
awful..." seeming to be the utmost concession that her distress
could make to my curiosity.

So marked was the change in her manner, such depths of sad