The rector was very firm in his opinion. "Why," said he, mopping his
forehead with his big silk handkerchief, "what do we want with a
railroad? My grandfather never thought of such a thing, so I think I can
get along without it, and it is a great deal better for the village not
to have it."

It would have cut off one corner of his barn; and though this could not
have interfered with the material or spiritual welfare of Ashurst, Dr.
Howe's opinion never wavered. And the rector but expressed the feelings
of the other "families," so that all Ashurst was conscious of relief when
the projectors of the railroad went no further than to make a cut at one
end of the Drayton pastures; and that was so long ago that now the earth,
which had shown a ragged yellow wound across the soft greenness of the
meadows, was sown by sweet clover and wild roses, and gave no sign of
ever having been gashed by picks and shovels.

The Misses Woodhouse's little orchard of gnarled and wrinkled apple-trees
came to the edge of the cut on one side, and then sloped down to the
kitchen garden and back door of their old house, which in front was shut
off from the road by a high brick wall, gray with lichens, and crumbling
in places where the mortar had rotted under the creepers and ivy, which
hung in heavy festoons over the coping. The tall iron gates had not been
closed for years, and, rusting on their hinges, had pressed back against
the inner wall, and were almost hidden by the tangle of vines, that were
woven in and out of the bars, and waved about in the sunshine from their
tops.

The square garden which the wall inclosed was full of cool, green
darkness; the trees were the growth of three generations, and the
syringas and lilacs were so thick and close they had scarcely light