the provision-man's, besides its symmetrical array of pendent sides and
quarters indoors, had banks of fruit and vegetables without, and a large
aquarium with a spraying fountain in its window.

Bolton, the farmer who had always taken care of the Kilburn place, came
to meet her at the station and drive her home. Miss Kilburn had bidden
him drive slowly, so that she could see all the changes, and she noticed
the new town-hall, with which she could find no fault; the Baptist and
Methodist churches were the same as of old; the Unitarian church seemed to
have shrunk as if the architecture had sympathised with its dwindling body
of worshippers; just beyond it was the village green, with the soldiers'
monument, and the tall white-painted flag-pole, and the four small brass
cannon threatening the points of the compass at its base.

"Stop a moment, Mr. Bolton," said Miss Kilburn; and she put her head quite
out of the carriage, and stared at the figure on the monument.

It was strange that the first misgiving she could really make sure of
concerning Hatboro' should relate to this figure, which she herself was
mainly responsible for placing there. When the money was subscribed and
voted for the statue, the committee wrote out to her at Rome as one who
would naturally feel an interest in getting something fit and economical
for them. She accepted the trust with zeal and pleasure; but she overruled
their simple notion of an American volunteer at rest, with his hands folded
on the muzzle of his gun, as intolerably hackneyed and commonplace. Her
conscience, she said, would not let her add another recruit to the regiment
of stone soldiers standing about in that posture on the tops of pedestals
all over the country; and so, instead of going to an Italian statuary with
her fellow-townsmen's letter, and getting him to make the figure they
wanted, she doubled the money and gave the commission to a young girl