contagion spread rapidly to Hagen, and the simple-minded
villagers, who saw in this movement the rapid growth of their little
town; the possible increase in the value of their property and the
consequent augmenting of their now limited fortunes, hailed with
delight the information that energetic operations would soon be
begun, with the view of successfully accomplishing the desired
object.

Not so, however, thought the Baron von Lindenthal, whose vast estate
lay in close proximity to the village, immediately adjoining the farm
owned and occupied by Henry Schulte, and through whose domain the
road must necessarily pass.

To him the idea of encroaching upon the ancestral acres of a von
Lindenthal, was an act of sacrilege not to be complacently submitted
to. The quiet and peaceful seclusion in which he and those who had
preceded him had lived, and the repose of his declining years was to
be disturbed by the whistling of the locomotive and the rattle of the
train. The din, and bustle and activity of trade was to be brought to
his very threshold, and the ease and comfort of his aristocratic
retirement would soon become a thing of the past. This must not and
could not be permitted, and the blood of the patrician boiled within
his noble veins as he contemplated the outrage that thus threatened
him, and which was to result in laying profane hands upon his
possessions. Improvements were all very well in their way, but then
they must not be of such a character as to interfere with the
pleasure or the luxurious ease of the Baron von Lindenthal. His
comfort and happiness were things to be considered far above the
material growth of a commercial town, and were not to be subordinated
to the welfare of its ambitious inhabitants.

But then, as now, the march of public improvement was not to be
retarded, and so, finding it impossible to successfully oppose or to
prevent the building of the objectionable railroad, the incensed
Baron very reluctantly determined to dispose of his baronial estates
and to remove to a more congenial locality, where the encroachments
of trade were not to be feared, and where, in undisturbed seclusion
and retirement, he might pass the remainder of his days.

With the irascible and impetuous Baron, the formation of an opinion
led to immediate action, and no sooner had he resolved to the
satisfaction of his own mind to dispose of his broad acres, than he
began to look about him for a purchaser.

When Henry