sness cannot be properly described.

The interior of the station was bleak and gravelly, but it would have
been possible to find fault with any interior on such an out-of-doors
day; and after the station-master had locked his ticket-office door
and tried the handle twice, with a comprehensive look at me, he went
slowly away up the road to spend some leisure time with his family. He
had ceased to take any interest in the traveling public, and answered
my questions as briefly as possible. After he had gone some distance
he turned to look back, but finding that I still sat on the baggage
truck in the sunshine, just where he left me, he smothered his natural
apprehensions, and went on.

One might spend a good half hour in watching crows as they go
southward resolutely through the clear sky, and then waver and come
straggling back as if they had forgotten something; one might think
over all one's immediate affairs, and learn to know the outward aspect
of such a place as East Wilby as if born and brought up there. But
after a while I lost interest in both past and future; there was too
much landscape before me at the moment, and a lack of figures. The
weather was not to be enjoyed merely as an end, yet there was no
temptation to explore the up-hill road on the left, or the level
fields on the right; I sat still on my baggage truck and waited for
something to happen. Sometimes one is so happy that there is nothing
left to wish for but to be happier, and just as the remembrance of
this truth illuminated my mind, I saw two persons approaching from
opposite directions. The first to arrive was a pleasant-looking
elderly countrywoman, well wrapped in a worn winter cloak with a thick
plaid shawl over it, and a white worsted cloud tied over her bonnet.
She carried a well-preserved bandbox,--the outlines were perfect under
its checked gingham cover,--and had a large bundle beside, securely
rolled in a newspaper. From her dress I felt sure that she had made a
mistake in dates, and expected winter to set in at once. Her face was
crimson with undue warmth, and what appeared in the end to have been
unnecessary haste. She did not take any notice of the elderly man who
reached the platform a minute later, until they were near enough to
take each other by the hand and exchange most cordial greetings.

"Well, this is a treat!" said the man, who was a small and
shivery-looking person. He carried a great umbrella and a thin,
enameled-cloth v