Well , anyhow , I do n't care , and he need n't suppose I will . It will be a relief not to have him hanging around any longer . '' It might have been a relief , but Anne felt strangely lonely as she walked home alone from prayer meeting the next night . Jerome had not been there . The Warrens were Methodists and Anne rightly guessed that he had gone to the Methodist prayer meeting at Cherry Valley . `` Dancing attendance on Harriet , '' she said to herself scornfully . When she got home she looked at her face in the glass more critically than she had done for years . Anne Stockard at her best had never been pretty . When young she had been called `` gawky . '' She was very tall and her figure was lank and angular . She had a long , pale face and dusky hair . Her eyes had been good -- a glimmering hazel , large and long-lashed . They were pretty yet , but the crow 's feet about them were plainly visible . There were brackets around her mouth too , and her cheeks were hollow . Anne suddenly realized , as she had never realized before , that she had grown old -- that her youth was left far behind . She was an old maid , and Harriet Warren was young , and pretty . Anne 's long , thin lips suddenly quivered . `` I declare , I 'm a worse fool than Jerome , '' she said angrily . When Saturday night came Jerome did not . The corner of the big , old-fashioned porch where he usually sat looked bare and lonely .
Anne was short with Octavia and boxed the cat 's ears and raged XXXXX herself .
about around as at for from on than that to