outgrown garments, which the helpless piety of Mrs. Bolton had kept from
the rag-bag, as to think of re-entering the relations of the life so long
left off.

It surprised her to find how cold the Boltons were; she had remembered them
as always very kind and willing; but she was so used now to the ways of
the Italians and their showy affection, it was hard for her to realise
that people could be both kind and cold. The Boltons seemed ashamed of
their feelings, and hid them; it was the same in some degree with all the
villagers when she began to meet them, and the fact slowly worked back into
her consciousness, wounding its way in. People did not come to see her at
once. They waited, as they told her, till she got settled, before they
called, and then they did not appear very glad to have her back.

But this was not altogether the effect of their temperament. The Kilburns
had made a long summer always in Hatboro', and they had always talked of it
as home; but they had never passed a whole year there since Judge Kilburn
first went to Congress, and they were not regarded as full neighbours
or permanent citizens. Miss Kilburn, however, kept up her childhood
friendships, and she and some of the ladies called one another by their
Christian names, but they believed that she met people in Washington whom
she liked better; the winters she spent there certainly weakened the ties
between them, and when it came to those eleven years in Rome, the letters
they exchanged grew rarer and rarer, till they stopped altogether. Some of
the girls went away; some died; others became dead and absent to her in
their marriages and household cares.

After waiting for one another, three of them came together to see her one
day. They all kissed her, after a questioning glance at her face and dress,
as if they wanted to see whether she had grown proud or too fashionable.