'Eh, I like that old chap,' thought Hazel.

The wrangle continued. It was the deathless quarrel of the world and
the monastery--natural man and the hermit. Finally Vessons concluded on
a top note.

'Well, if you take this girl's good name off'n her--'

Suddenly something happened in Hazel's brain. It was the realization of
life in relation to self. It marks the end of childhood. She no more
saw herself throned above life and fate, as a child does. She saw that
she was a part of it all; she was mutable and mortal.

She had seen life go on, had heard of funerals, courtings, confinements
and weddings in their conventional order--or reversed--and she had
remained, as it were, intact. She had starved and slaved and woven
superstitions, loved Foxy, and tolerated her father.

Girl friends had hinted of a wild revelry that went on somewhere--
everywhere--calling like a hidden merry-go-round to any who cared to
hear. But she had not heard. They had let fall such sentences as 'He
got the better of me,' 'I cried out, and he thought someone was coming,
and he let me go.' Later, she heard, 'And I thought I'd ne'er get
through it when baby came.'

She felt vaguely sorry for these girls; but she realized nothing of
their life. Nor did she associate funerals and illness with herself.

As the convolvulus stands in apparent changelessness in a silent
rose-and-white eternity, so she seemed to herself a stationary being.