SHEPHEKDSTOWN, ON THE POTOMAC. 58 



brought to the end of my railroad journey by a kind, motherly woman, 

 a friend of my Aunt's, who was travelling West with her own chil- 

 dren. My trouble was too new to admit of help, which she soon 

 found out, and contented herself with looking after me very care- 

 fully ; that I had plenty to eat, a good seat, always by the window, 

 even when it was to the exclusion of her own children, a share of 

 their books, papers and good things of all sorts, and, above all, she 



kept the children away from me. When she left me at ville, 



with a kind kiss, I felt that I had lost a friend. There I sat — such a 

 lonely little creature — my life finished and my story told, as I said 

 to myself, too homesick and too heartsick to care any more for the 

 nobility of suffering. Being left alone had the good effect of mak- 

 ing me look about me for the first time since I had left Brookdale — 

 years ago, it seemed to me, yesterday morning in reality. We were 

 driving slowly along through the quiet Autumn landscape, and, 

 even yet, scarcely more than half aroused, I began presently to feel 

 that there was a change. Where were the bright, trim villages, the 

 orderly little farms well stocked with labor-saving machines, the 

 comfortable modern farm houses, the well built, well painted barns 

 and stables, often presenting a finer appearance than the houses 

 themselves, the tidily fenced-in fields? I saw no more of them. On 

 each side of the Turnpike road along which we were driving was a 

 long extent of fields ; some green with grass or clover, some brown, 

 the wheat not yet high enough to make much show. There were 

 many breaks in the fences, even where they bordered on the Turn- 

 pike, breaks of ancient date. The farm houses were moss-grown, 

 ancient and picturesque ; the barns and stables were probably water 

 tight, but I am afraid that is the only virtue to which they could lay 

 claim, except perhaps size. As for paint I don't remember seeing 

 any on house or outhouse, and I am pretty sure that three times at 

 least I saw a flail. 



I was entering a world that I did not know. Earth, sky, woods, 

 all were different and ages older. I had left the modern, active, 

 noisy, lively world of my childhood behind me, and was entering 

 this quiet, solemn one, where the very sun himself looked old, and 

 seemed to shine with a red, mellow light. I was still engaged in 

 this half real half fanciful comparison when the driver, stopping 

 his horses and his droning conversation with the mail carrrier, at the 



