sing only the feeble shoots of one or two summers'
growth, that looked not unlike tall grenadiers on post near the
threshold of princes. In truth, the occupants of these favored
habitations were the nobles of Templeton, as Marmaduke was its king.
They were the dwellings of two young men who were cunning in the law;
an equal number of that class who chaffered to the wants of the
community under the title of storekeepers; and a disciple of
AEsculapius, who, for a novelty, brought more subjects into the world
than he sent out of it.

In the midst of this incongruous group of dwellings rose the mansion
of the Judge, towering above all its neighbors. It stood in the center
of an enclosure of several acres, which was covered with fruit-trees.
Some of the latter had been left by the Indians, and began already to
assume the moss and inclination of age, therein forming a very marked
contrast to the infant plantations that peered over most of the
picketed fences of the village. In addition to this show of
cultivation were two rows of young Lombardy poplars, a tree but lately
introduced into America, formally lining either side of a pathway
which led from a gate that opened on the principal street to the front
door of the building. The house itself had been built entirely under
the superintendence of a certain Mr. Richard Jones, whom we have
already mentioned, and who, from his cleverness in small matters, and
an entire willingness to exert his talents, added to the circumstances
of their being sisters' children, ordinarily superintended all the
minor concerns of Marmaduke Temple. Richard was fond of saying that
this child of invention consisted of nothing more or less than what
should form the groundwork of every clergyman's discourse, viz., a
firstly and a lastly. He had commenced his labors, in the first year
of their residence, by erecting a tall, gaunt edifice of wood, with
its gable toward the highway. In this shelter, for it was little more,
the family resided three years. By the end of that period Richard had
completed his design. He had availed himself, in this heavy
undertaking, of the experience of a certain wandering Eastern
mechanic, who, by exhibiting a few soiled plates of English
architecture, and talking learnedly of friezes, entablatures, and
particularly of the composite order, had obtained a very undue
influence over Richard's taste in everything that pertained to that
branch of the fine arts. Not that Mr. Jon