During the time Lizbeth grows up she doesn’t care about the society outside her community but with time she doesn’t have the will to play childish games anymore and starts to realize that she is becoming a woman.
Nevertheless, all her structure growing up is based in that her father is the <em>rock of the family</em>, the one who provides and takes care of her and her mother.
When Lizbeth listens to a conversation between her mother and her father and sees her father <em>crying</em> because he is unemployed - remember the book is placed during the <em>great depression</em> - she realizes that all she believed in all her life is not real. There is no space anymore for innocence now.
At that moment she realizes that <em>"her childhood faded and her womanhood begun”.</em>
Stares. like looking at someone. hope this helps :)))
If we are going to search the meaning of the word "austere" in the dictionary or any reliable sources, we will see that this means severe or strict in manner or unemotional, etc. From the words used in the sentence, another word that has similar meaning to the word "austere" is the word "stern". Thus, the answer to this item is stern.