But Ashurst rather prided itself upon being half asleep. The rush and
life of newer places had a certain vulgarity; haste was undignified, it
was almost ill bred, and the most striking thing about the village,
resting at the feet of its low green hills, was its atmosphere of leisure
and repose.

Its grassy road was nearly two miles long, so that Ashurst seemed to
cover a great deal of ground, though there were really very few houses.
A lane, leading to the rectory, curled about the foot of East Hill at one
end of the road, and at the other was the brick-walled garden of the
Misses Woodhouse.

Between these extremes the village had slowly grown; but its first youth
was so far past, no one quite remembered it, and even the trying stage of
middle age was over, and its days of growth were ended. This was perhaps
because of its distance from the county town, for Mercer was twelve miles
away, and there was no prospect of a railroad to unite them. It had been
talked of once; some of the shopkeepers, as well as Mr. Lash, the
carpenter, advocated it strenuously at Bulcher's grocery store in the
evenings, because, they said, they were at the mercy of Phibbs, the
package man, who brought their wares on his slow, creaking cart over the
dusty turnpike from Mercer. But others, looking into the future, objected
to a convenience which might result in a diminution of what little trade
they had. Among the families, however, who did not have to consider
"trade" there was great unanimity, though the Draytons murmured something
about the increased value of the land; possibly not so much with a view
to the welfare of Ashurst as because their property extended along the
proposed line of the road.