name over the station door was naught
but a blur. Now all was changed. Many trains stopped, and people of the
city mien descended from or entered smart traps, yellow depot-wagons or
immaculate victorias, drawn by short-tailed, sophisticated steeds
managed by liveried persons whose scraped faces were at once impassive
and alert.

In its outlying parts, moreover, stately villas now stood in the midst
of grounds hedged, levelled, sprayed, shaven, trimmed and
garnished--grounds cherished sacredly with a reverence like unto that
once accorded the Front Room in this same village. Edom, indeed, had
outgrown its villagehood as a country boy in the city will often outgrow
his home ways. That is, it was still a village in its inmost heart; but
outwardly, at its edges, the distinctions and graces of urban
worldliness had come upon it.

All this from the happy circumstance that Edom lay in a dale of beauty
not too far from the blessed centre of things requisite. First, one by
one, then by families, then by groups of families, then by cliques, the
invaders had come to promote Edom's importance; one being brought by the
gracious falling of its little hills; one by its narrow valleys where
the quick little waters come down; one by the clearness of its air; and
one by the cheapness with which simple old farms might be bought and
converted into the most city-like of country homes.

The old stock of Edom had early learned not to part with any massive
claw-footed sideboard with glass knobs, or any mahogany four-poster, or
tall clock, or high-boy, except after feigning a distressed reluctance.
It had learned also to hide its consternation at the prices which this
behaviour would eventually induce the newcomers to pay for such junk.
Indeed, it learned very soon to be a shrewd valuer of old mahogany,
pewter, and china; even to suspect that the buyers might perceive
beauties in it that justified the prices they paid.

Old Edom, too, has its own opinion of the relative joys of master and
servant, the latter being always debonair, their employers stiff, formal
and concerned. It conceives that the employers, indeed, have but one
pleasure: to stand beholding with anxious solemnity--quite as if it were
the performance of a religious rite--the serious-visaged men who daily
barber the lawns and hedges. It is suspected by old Edomites that the
menials, finding themselves watched at this delicate task, strive to
copy in face and demeanour the sole