Read the story.

Hearts and Hands

by O. Henry

At Denver there was an influx of passengers into the coaches on the eastbound B. & M. express. In one coach there sat a very pretty young woman dressed in elegant taste and surrounded by all the luxurious comforts of an experienced traveler. Among the newcomers were two young men, one of handsome presence with a bold, frank countenance and manner; the other a ruffled, glum-faced person, heavily built and roughly dressed. The two were handcuffed together.

How does the language in Paragraph 1 evoke a sense of time and place?

A. It includes an outdated reference to handcuffs, and, therefore, is set in a past time.

B. It describes a time when women were noted for elegant taste in clothes.

C. It describes a world in which railroads were the main mode of long-distance travel for Americans.

D. It uses words such as ruffled, glum-faced, and luxurious, which would not be used to describe people today.

In this passage, we can see that both luxurious and beautiful women and prisioners handcuffed together travelled in the same train. This allows the reader to understand that the story is set in a time in which railroads were the ain mode of long-distance travel in the United States, because, otherwise, the prisioners would be transported by any other possible mean.

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