This from the story “Two Rivers”:

“His pupils’ well-meaning mothers–the widows especially–sometimes asked why he didn’t remarry; it wasn’t right for a man to be alone. He might have replied that the Academy, and his remaining family, required his full attention. Or he might have told the widows the truth: that once, not long after he and Margaret were married, he’d complimented her on a pot of yellow blossoms near the front door. She’d laughed, and blushed, and then confessed that weeks earlier, watching walk around the vegetable garden, she’d slipped out, dug up a brick-sized clump of earth which held the clear impression of his right foot, and tucked it into a flower pot. In that earth she’d planted a chrysanthemum, hoping that as it bloomed year after year so would his love for her. How should he marry again, after that?”