SHEPHERDSTOWN, ON THE POTOMAC. 51 



sunny meadows, as peaceful a picture as one would meet in a Sum- 

 mer day's journey. Its blue Mountains stood steadfastly around it. 

 Its gentle River flowed quietly by, and for all the years that had 

 passed over them Town nor Mountains nor River had much to tell 

 that is of a stirring kind. But in a place where people live and die 

 and are good or bad, and happy or unhappy accordingly, much must 

 happen after all, of a quiet kind. These apparently eventless lives 

 have their joys as bright, their sorrows as hard to bear as in the 

 outer world. 



All this had been told me, many and many a time, by my Mother, 

 who had married and left Shepherdstown before she was twenty; 

 and yet when I finally came to see it, I was no nearer to a right idea 

 or understanding of it, than might have been expected from a prim 

 little Yankee of my years (sixteen), who had never been South of 

 Mason and Dixon's line — to make use of an old-fashioned land- 

 mark. To get through with my own story at once, I will say here that 

 my father and mother having died, within a year of each other, 

 shortly before, I was on my way to Shepherdstown to make my home 

 with my Mother's sister, in whose guardianship I had been left, and 

 whom as a child I had been accustomed to see every year, with my 

 two eldest cousins ; but as her family grew larger, the visits had been 

 made at longer intervals, and it was now five years since I had seen 

 them. I had lived all my life in a neat, thriving, modern brisk New 

 England town — very pretty too, it was in my eyes, [and I still think it 

 so], notwithstanding a slight monotony in its regular streets, shaded 

 elm-trees, and its unornamented white houses and green shutters. 

 Every one knows, however, that there is a certain pleasantness about 

 this bright, cleanness and regularity; and the interiors contain an 

 immense deal of comfort, greater I have found than one meets with in 

 more picturesque places. The houses were plain, it is true, but they 

 were surrounded by brilliant gardens, about which, if you studied 

 them carefully, there was also a slight sameness — there being a great 

 rivalry among the ladies of Brookdale about their flowers, and no 

 one could bring out a plant, however rare, that was not presently 

 seen, first in one garden, then in another, until it ceased to be a 

 rarity; the great effort, now, being who could bring it nearest perfec- 

 tion. 



It was well named Brookdale. It was onlv a small Town, and in 



