"This estate then, this large and respectable mansion, and these
pleasant grounds in which we now sit, are the property in common
of three most estimable ladies, all past their first youth, and
all possessed of sufficient good sense and strength of mind to
remain their own mistresses, which has procured for the very
remarkable specimen of ingenuity now before us, from some
ignorant townspeople, the sobriquet of the 'Old Maid's Village.'

"There is only one of the ladies, however, I am informed, who
interests herself in the construction of these most ingenious
toys. Possessed of ample means, and more than ample leisure,
she amuses herself in hours which might otherwise be devoted
to gossip and tea, in putting together these various models
of buildings, all differing in style, and of most singular
materials. The church, for instance, is built of fragments of
clinker, gathered from stove and grate, and held firmly together
by cement. Nothing could have reproduced so exactly the rough
reddish stone of which the old Sleepy Hollow Church is built.
The window-glass is represented by carefully framed pieces of tin
foil; the gray stone of the gate-posts is imitated by sand rubbed
on wooden pillars with a coating of cement. The streets are paved
in much the same clever fashion. The well, the pond, the stream,
are filled with water each day by the chatelaine's own careful
hands. Many of the mimic creatures, human and otherwise, are
automata, manufactured to order; the others are wooden or china
figures selected with extreme care as to their fitness for their
purpose. So rare and so exceedingly pretty are some of these
little figures, that they have become objects of unlawful desire
to certain soulless curiosity-mongers, who have rewarded an open
and confiding hospitality with base attempts at spoliation; and