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VELYN had thought she and Joe would always speak and answer really, be crystal clear to each other. But now they were married there were stretches of muddle, of fog; sometimes she was filled with a panic of nervousness. There were times when she didn't know what to say to him, how to interest and please him. Easy enough to say, "Just be yourself," but what is yourself? And she missed the old life.

Sitting high in the muddy Ford, in the prim upright position that Fords demand, she remembered lying back in Ralph's Hispano-Suiza, tearing around corners, making peasants jump and run. Mimosa trees in golden showers, a painted cart crammed with grass, the horse nodding with feathers and chiming with bells, a saint in a faded blue-plaster heaven, and Ralph beside her, making her feel beautiful and exquisite, as he always could.

Now instead of that, the maple trees turning red, Plunkett's delivery automobile, the Christian Science Church, Joe saying: "Darling, do wipe off your mouth. I hate that color."

She had felt that her soul's desire was for a country life, away from the turmoil of town. And when Joe was with her the sun-hot pine needles were silky soft,