She felt quite at home.

Sometimes she put off doing a laundry job just to enjoy being outdoors among her good friends.

On days when she was too rushed to do her own cooking and had to go out to buy something already cooked, she would stop to gossip with her arms full of bowls.

The neighbor she respected the most was still the watchmaker.
Often she would cross the street to greet him in his tiny cupboard of a shop, taking pleasure in the gaiety of the little cuckoo clocks with their pendulums ticking away the hours in chorus..