den of the
Misses Woodhouse.

Between these extremes the village had slowly grown; but its first youth
was so far past, no one quite remembered it, and even the trying stage of
middle age was over, and its days of growth were ended. This was perhaps
because of its distance from the county town, for Mercer was twelve miles
away, and there was no prospect of a railroad to unite them. It had been
talked of once; some of the shopkeepers, as well as Mr. Lash, the
carpenter, advocated it strenuously at Bulcher's grocery store in the
evenings, because, they said, they were at the mercy of Phibbs, the
package man, who brought their wares on his slow, creaking cart over the
dusty turnpike from Mercer. But others, looking into the future, objected
to a convenience which might result in a diminution of what little trade
they had. Among the families, however, who did not have to consider
"trade" there was great unanimity, though the Draytons murmured something
about the increased value of the land; possibly not so much with a view
to the welfare of Ashurst as because their property extended along the
proposed line of the road.

The rector was very firm in his opinion. "Why," said he, mopping his
forehead with his big silk handkerchief, "what do we want with a
railroad? My grandfather never thought of such a thing, so I think I can
get along without it, and it is a great deal better for the village not
to have it."

It would have cut off one corner of his barn; and though this could not
have interfered with the material or spiritual welfare of Ashurst, Dr.
Howe's opinion never wavered. And the rector but expressed the feelings
of the other "families," so that all Ashurst was conscious of relief when
the projectors of the railroad went no further than to make a cut at one
end of the Drayton pastures; and that was so long ago that now the earth,
which had shown a ragged yellow wound across the soft greenness of the
meadows, was sown by sweet clover and wild roses, and gave no sign of
ever having been gashed by picks and shovels.

The Misses Woodhouse's little orchard of gnarled and wrinkled apple-trees
came to the edge of the cut on one side, and then sloped down to the
kitchen garden and back door of their old house, which in front was shut
off from the road by a high brick wall, gray with lichens, and crumbling
in places where the mortar had rotted under the creepers and ivy, which
hung in heavy festoons over the coping. The tal