A Very Old Milestone. 197 



but coming from it dissatisfied if Ruth or Re- 

 becca had not been in evidence. In such way 

 fancy runs wild as I look at the stone, and in 

 more sober moments I am forced to confess the 

 thing itself is not suggestive. How utterly 

 stupid is a modern milestone ! and why, after 

 all, should one that has crumbled under Time's 

 destroying touch be more so ? It fails, to my 

 sorrow, to conjure up a lengthy panorama of 

 Colonial days. Perhaps it is as well ; for if the 

 whole truth were told our enthusiasm might be 

 chilled. As it is, we forget that then as now 

 there was an ugly, seamy underside of things, 

 and the early settlers were quite as human as 

 their successors of to-day. No ; in digging up 

 an old milestone I did not dig up a treasure. 

 Fancy no more clings to it than water to the 

 feathers of a duck. But I have been impatient. 

 Looking at it again to-day, while the storm 

 was raging, the old milestone, to my surprise, 

 was clothed with interest. Brave snow-birds 

 perched upon it. How suggestive they proved 

 to be ! A strange light seemed to rest upon the 

 stone, and I saw, as in a picture, the forests of 

 other days ; and not a tree but was the resting- 



