There is no condition of life that is wholly acceptable, but none that is
not tolerable when once it establishes itself; and while Annie Kilburn
had never consented to be an old maid, she had become one without great
suffering. At thirty-one she could not call herself anything else; she
often called herself an old maid, with the mental reservation that she was
not one. She was merely unmarried; she might marry any time. Now, when she
assured herself of this, as she had done many times before, she suddenly
wondered if she should ever marry; she wondered if she had seemed to her
friends yesterday like a person who would never marry. Did one carry such
a thing in one's looks? Perhaps they, idealised her; they had not seen her
since she was twenty, and perhaps they still thought of her as a young
girl. It now seemed to her as if she had left her youth in Rome, as in Rome
it had seemed to her that she should find it again in Hatboro'. A pang of
aimless, unlocalised homesickness passed through her; she realised that she
was alone in the world. She rose to escape the pang, and went to the window
of the parlour which looked toward the street, where she saw the figure of
a young man draped in a long indiarubber gossamer coat fluttering in the
wind that pushed him along as he tacked on a southerly course; he bowed
and twisted his head to escape the lash of the rain. She watched him till
he turned into the lane leading to the house, and then, at a discreeter
distance, she watched him through the window at the other corner, making
his way up to the front door in the teeth of the gale. He seemed to have a
bundle under his arm, and as he stepped into the shelter of the portico,
and freed his arm to ring, she discovered that it was a bundle of books.
Whether Mrs. Bolton did not hear the bell, or whether she heard it and
decided that it would be absurd to leave her work for it, when Miss
Kilburn, who was so much nearer, could answer it, she did not come, even at
a second ring, and Annie was forced to go to the door herself, or leave the
poor man dripping in the cold wind outside.