We thought we knew all about Miss Ponsonby 's past ; but even pale , drab , china-blue women can have their secrets and keep them . It was a full half year before we discovered Miss Ponsonby 's . * * * * * In October , Stephen Shaw came home from the west to visit his father and mother after an absence of fifteen years . Jerry and I met him at a party at his brother-in-law 's . We knew he was a bachelor of forty-five or so and had made heaps of money in the lumber business , so we expected to find him short and round and bald , with bulgy blue eyes and a double chin . On the contrary , he was a tall , handsome man with clear-cut features , laughing black eyes like a boy 's , and iron-grey hair . That iron-grey hair nearly finished Jerry ; she thinks there is nothing so distinguished and she had the escape of her life from falling in love with Stephen Shaw . He was as gay as the youngest , danced splendidly , went everywhere , and took all the Glenboro girls about impartially . It was rumoured that he had come east to look for a wife but he did n't seem to be in any particular hurry to find her . One evening he called on Jerry ; that is to say , he did ask for both of us , but within ten minutes Jerry had him mewed up in the cosy corner to the exclusion of all the rest of the world . I felt that I was a huge crowd , so I obligingly decamped upstairs and sat down by my window to `` muse , '' as Miss Ponsonby would have said . It was a glorious moonlight night , with just a hint of October frost in the air -- enough to give sparkle and tang . After a few moments I became aware that Miss Ponsonby was also `` musing '' at her window in the shadow of the acacia tree . In that dim light she looked quite pretty . It was suddenly borne in upon me for the first time that , when Miss Ponsonby was young , she must have been very pretty , with that delicate elusive fashion of beauty which fades so early if the life is not kept in it by love and tenderness . It seemed odd , somehow , to think of Miss Ponsonby as young and pretty . She seemed so essentially middle-aged and faded . `` Lovely night , Miss Ponsonby , '' I said brilliantly . `` A very beautiful night , dear Elizabeth , '' answered Miss Ponsonby in that tired little voice of hers that always seemed as drab-coloured as the rest of her . `` I 'm mopy , '' I said frankly .
`` Jerry has concentrated herself on Stephen Shaw for the XXXXX and I 'm left on the fringe of things . ''
Elizabeth Glenboro Jerry Ponsonby Shaw evening first night year years