In its contents the Square had not surprisingly changed during the immense, the terrifying interval that separated her from her virginity.  On the east side, several shops had been thrown into one, and forced into a semblance of eternal unity by means of a coat of stucco.  And there was a fountain at the north end which was new to her.  No other constructional change!  But the moral change, the sad declension from the ancient proud spirit of the Square—­this was painfully depressing.  Several establishments lacked tenants, had obviously lacked tenants for a long time; ’To let’ notices hung in their stained and dirty upper windows, and clung insecurely to their closed shutters.  And on the sign-boards of these establishments were names that Sophia did not know.  The character of most of the shops seemed to have worsened; they had become pettifogging little holes, unkempt, shabby, poor; they had no brightness, no feeling of vitality.  And the floor of the Square was littered with nondescript refuse.  The whole scene, paltry, confined, and dull, reached for her the extreme of provinciality.  It was what the French called, with a pregnant intonation, la province.  This—­being said, there was nothing else to say.  Bursley, of course, was in the provinces; Bursley must, in the nature of things, be typically provincial.  But in her mind it had always been differentiated from the common province; it had always had an air, a distinction, and especially St. Luke’s Square!  That illusion was now gone.  Still, the alteration was not wholly in herself; it was not wholly subjective.  The Square really had changed for the worse; it might not be smaller, but it had deteriorated.  As a centre of commerce it had assuredly approached very near to death.  On a Saturday morning thirty years ago it would have been covered with linen-roofed stalls, and chattering country-folk, and the stir of bargains.  Now, Saturday morning was like any other morning in the Square, and the glass-roof of St. Luke’s market in Wedgwood Street, which she could see from her window, echoed to the sounds of noisy commerce.  In that instance business had simply moved a few yards to the east; but Sophia knew, from hints in Constance’s letters and in her talk, that business in general had moved more than a few yards, it had moved a couple of miles—­to arrogant and pushing Hanbridge, with its electric light and its theatres and its big, advertising shops.  The heaven of thick smoke over the Square, the black deposit on painted woodwork, the intermittent hooting of steam syrens, showed that the wholesale trade of Bursley still flourished.  But Sophia had no memories of the wholesale trade of Bursley; it meant nothing to the youth of her heart; she was attached by intimate links to the retail traffic of Bursley, and as a mart old Bursley was done for.

She thought:  “It would kill me if I had to live here.  It’s deadening.  It weighs on you.  And the dirt, and the horrible ugliness!  And the—­way they talk, and the way they think!  I felt it first at Knype station.  The Square is rather picturesque, but it’s such a poor, poor little thing!  Fancy having to look at it every morning of one’s life!  No!” She almost shuddered.