Mrs. Falconer had reduced the practice of listening to a fine art . She was a thin , wistful-faced mite of a woman , with sad brown eyes , and with snow-white hair that was a libel on her fifty-five years and girlish step . Nobody in Lindsay ever felt very well acquainted with Mrs. Falconer , in spite of the fact that she had lived among them forty years . She kept between her and her world a fine , baffling reserve which no one had ever been able to penetrate . It was known that she had had a bitter sorrow in her life , but she never made any reference to it , and most people in Lindsay had forgotten it . Some foolish ones even supposed that Mrs. Falconer had forgotten it . `` Well , I do not know what on earth is to be done with Camilla Clark , '' said Miss Bailey , with a prodigious sigh . `` I suppose that we will simply have to trust the whole matter to Providence . '' Miss Bailey 's tone and sigh really seemed to intimate to the world at large that Providence was a last resort and a very dubious one . Not that Miss Bailey meant anything of the sort ; her faith was as substantial as her works , which were many and praiseworthy and seasonable . The case of Camilla Clark was agitating the Ladies ' Aid of one of the Lindsay churches . They had talked about it through the whole of that afternoon session while they sewed for their missionary box -- talked about it , and come to no conclusion . In the preceding spring James Clark , one of the hands in the lumber mill at Lindsay , had been killed in an accident . The shock had proved nearly fatal to his young wife . The next day Camilla Clark 's baby was born dead , and the poor mother hovered for weeks between life and death . Slowly , very slowly , life won the battle , and Camilla came back from the valley of the shadow . But she was still an invalid , and would be so for a long time . The Clarks had come to Lindsay only a short time before the accident . They were boarding at Mrs. Barry 's when it happened , and Mrs. Barry had shown every kindness and consideration to the unhappy young widow . But now the Barrys were very soon to leave Lindsay for the West , and the question was , what was to be done with Camilla Clark ?
She could not go west ; she could not even do work of any sort yet XXXXX Lindsay ; she had no relatives or friends in the world ; and she was absolutely penniless .
about before in of on that through to while with