poor-house grow more frightful every day. I thought they looked
worse than ever when I came home, and saw the contrast with
Lincolnshire. I hope the old and new towns will long be as different
as they are now.'

'I am afraid they hardly will,' said Anne; 'the old town will soon
begin to rival the new one. You must already find new notions
creeping into it.'

'Creeping!' cried Elizabeth, 'they gallop along the railroad as fast
as steam can carry them. However, we are happily a quiet dull race,
and do not take them in; we only open our eyes and stare at all the
wonders round. I do not know what we may come to in time, we may be
as genteel as Kate's friend, Willie Turner, says the people are in
Aurelia Place--that perked-up row of houses, whose windows and doors
give them such a comical expression of countenance, more like
butterflies than aurelias.'

'Who is Kate's friend?' asked Anne, in a wondering tone.

'Willie Turner!' said Elizabeth; 'oh! the apothecary's daughter,
Wilhelmina. You must have heard of Mr. Turner. Rupert has made a
standing joke of him, ever since the scarlet-fever.'

'Oh yes!' said Anne, 'I know Mr. Turner's name very well; but I never
knew that Miss Turner was a friend of Kate's.'

'She was not,' said Elizabeth, 'till Helen went to Dykelands, and
poor Kitty was quite lonely for want of someone to gossip with, and
so she struck up a most romantic friendship with Willie Turner; and