there was a doctor's shop; there a heap of
dingy sheep skins and brown calf hides cast down at a door, told of the
leather store; here and there hung out a milliner's sign. A few steps
further on the other side of the way, a great brick factory stood;
Matilda had no very distinct notion of what wares it turned out, but
the children believed they were iron works of some sort. A cross street
here led to side ways which extended parallel with the main
thoroughfare, one on the north and one on the south of it, and which,
though more scatteringly built up, were yet a considerable enlargement
of the village. A little further on, and Matilda had reached the
church; in her language _the_ church, though only one of several in
which the villagers delighted. A great creamy-brown edifice, of no
particular style of architecture, with a broad porch upheld by a row of
big pillars, and a little square tower where hung a bell, declared to
be the sweetest and clearest of all in the neighbourhood. So, many
thought, were the utterances inside the church. Just beyond, Matilda
could see the lecture-room, with its transepts, and its pretty hood
over the door, for all which and sundry other particulars concerning it
she had a private favour; but Matilda did not go so far this afternoon.
Short of the lecture-room, a gate in the fence of the church grounds
stood open; a large gate, through which waggons and carriages sometimes
passed; Matilda turned in there, and picked her way over the ridgy snow
down the lane that led to the parsonage.

The parsonage sat thus quietly back from the sights and noises of the
street; a little brown house, it looked, half hidden in summer by the
sweeping foliage of the elms that overarched the little lane; half
sheltered now in winter by a goodly pine-tree that stood in the centre
of the little plot of grass round which swept the road to the
front-door. Wheels or runners had been there, for the road was tracked
with them; but not many, for the villagers needed no such help to get
to the minister, and there were few of the church people who lived at a
distance and could leave their work and take their teams on a week-day
to come a-pleasuring; and still fewer who were rich enough to do as
they liked at all times. There were some; but Matilda ran little risk
of meeting them; and so mounted the parsonage steps and lifted the
knocker with no more than her own private reasons for hesitation,
whatever those might be. She