insult me for trying to be courteous, though I may not exactly
understand the way. It can do the Misses Lindsay no harm to receive
such an invitation from us, and we cannot be injured by a refusal."

"For my own part," said Henry, "I think that the question whether we
are to be neighbors or not should be settled. They are strangers, and
it is our business to make the first advance toward an acquaintance. If
they decline, we have only hereafter to keep at a respectful distance."

"Precious little respect will they find in me," said Fanny. "I am too
much of a Yankee to flatter people by subserviency, or to put myself
out of the way to gain acquaintances about whom I care not a fig. But
drive on: while we are prating and voting about the nabobs at Appledale
the sun is growing hot."

Henry gathered up his reins, and away the wagons clattered down the
long hill, and with a short, thunder-like rumble crossed the bridge
between the Sliver Place and Appledale. Perhaps the writer may be
called to account for this romantic name: he will therefore give it
here. Appledale was once called Snag-Orchard, on account of the old
trees whose fugitive roots often found their way into the road, making
great trouble, and causing great complaint from the citizens, who
yearly worked out a tax there.

The people of that place would never have thought of calling it
anything else, had it not been for Susan and Margaret Sliver, who
sometimes wrote verses, and thought that Appledale sounded better in
poetry than did Snag-Orchard. These ladies, (they called themselves
young, but we must be truthful, even at the expense of courtesy,)
--these ladies, Margaret and Susan, said that this old place