anybody. To be
sure, people flew to windows when the elegant equipage dashed by, and
everybody found frequent occasion to drive or walk past the Peacock Inn.
It was only the novelty of it, in a place that rather lacked novelties.

And yet there prevailed in the community a vague sense that millions
were there, and a curious expectation of some individual benefit from
them. All the young berry-pickers were unusually active, and poured
berries into the kitchen door of the inn. There was not a housewife who
was not a little more anxious about the product of her churning; not a
farmer who did not think that perhaps cord-wood would rise, that
there would be a better demand for garden "sass," and more market for
chickens, and who did not regard with more interest his promising colt.
When he drove to the village his rig was less shabby and slovenly in
appearance. The young fellows who prided themselves upon a neat buggy
and a fast horse made their turnouts shine, and dashed past the inn with
a self-conscious air. Even the stores began to "slick up" and arrange
their miscellaneous notions more attractively, and one of them boldly
put in a window a placard, "Latest New York Style." When the family
went to the Congregational church on Sunday not the slightest notice
was taken of them--though every woman could have told to the last detail
what the ladies wore--but some of the worshipers were for the first time
a little nervous about the performance of the choir, and the deacons
heard the sermon chiefly with reference to what a city visitor would
think of it.

Mrs. Mavick was quite equal to the situation. In the church she
was devout, in the village she was affable and friendly. She made
acquaintances right and left, and took a simple interest in everybody
and everything. She was on easy terms with the landlord, who declared,
"There is a woman with no nonsense in her." She chatted with the farmers
who stopped at the inn door, she bought things at the stores that she
did not want, and she speedily discovered Aunt Hepsy, and loved to sit
with her in the little shop and pick up the traditions and the gossip
of the neighborhood. And she did not confine her angelic visits to
the village. On one pretense and another she made her way into every
farmhouse that took her fancy, penetrated the kitchens and dairies, and
got, as she told McDonald, into the inner life of the people.

She must see the grave of Captain Moses Rice. And on this l