ike again beyond
the toll-gate, and although this road was not always in very good
condition, it had seen a good deal of travel, which, in time, gave it
the name of the shunpike. But since Captain Asher had lived at the
toll-gate it was remarked that the shunpike was not used as much as in
former times. There were penurious people who had once preferred to go a
long way round and save money whose economical dispositions now gave way
before the combined attractions of a better road, and a chat with
Captain Asher.

It had been predicted by some of her relatives that Olive would not be
content with her life in her uncle's somewhat peculiar household. He was
a bachelor, and seldom entertained company, and his ordinary family
consisted of an elderly housekeeper and another servant. But Olive was
not in the least dissatisfied. From her infancy up, she had lived so
much among people that she had grown tired of them; and her good-natured
uncle, with his sea stories, the garden, the old-fashioned house, the
fields and the woods beyond, the little stream, which came hurrying down
from the mountains, where she could fish or wade as the fancy pleased
her, gave her a taste of some of the joys of girlhood which she had not
known when she was really a girl.

Another thing that greatly interested her was the toll-gate. If she had
been allowed to do so, she would have spent the greater part of her time
taking money, making change, and talking to travelers. But this her
uncle would not permit. He did not object to her doing some occasional
toll-gate work, and he did not wonder that she liked it, remembering how
interesting it often was to himself, but he would not let her take toll
indiscriminately.

So they made a regular arrangement about it. When the captain was at his
meals, or shaving, or otherwise occupied, old Jane attended to the
toll-gate. At ordinary times, and when any of his special friends were
seen approaching, the captain collected toll himself, but when women
happened to be traveling on the road, then it was arranged that Olive
should go to the gate.

Two or three times it had happened that some young men of the town,
hearing their sisters talk of the pretty girl who had taken their toll,
had thought it might be a pleasant thing to drive out on the pike, but
their money had always been taken by the captain, or else by the
wooden-faced Jane, and nothing had come of their little adventures.

The garden hedge which ran