ng and wondering, Aunt Jane came out. "I reckon you
think this is a curious-lookin' place, honey," she said, as she stowed
away her packages on the seat. "This old store is one o' the places
that ain't changed in my memory. 'Stablished in 1847, and I don't
reckon it's had a right good cleanin' from that day to this, but the
best of everything a drug-store keeps is in them old dusty bottles and
jars. It does me good to come to town and find one place lookin' jest
like it did when me and Abram used to come on county-court days and
circus days. And there's the old men sittin' around that stove.
They've been there for the last twenty-five years, and they'll be
there till death comes along and picks 'em up and carries 'em away.
And now, child, give me the lines. I'm goin' to drive around a little
while, and then we'll go home."

She took the lines and began what seemed to me an aimless ramble
through the streets of the town. She grew strangely silent, and that
look on her face--was it sadness or only joy in retrospect? I began to
see the meaning of our ride to town. The garden-seed and other
purchases were but a vain pretext. In reality, she had come to keep a
tryst with the past. Now and then she remembered my presence, and
would point to some place that was a link between to-day and
yesterday. Here was the place in which General Buckner had made his
headquarters during the Civil War; in that house Charles Sumner was
once a guest; on yonder height stood a Confederate fortification, and
on a similar elevation on the opposite side of town was another fort
erected by a Federal commander, afterward a president; and--wondrous
miracle!--the angel of peace had turned the old fort into a garden. As
Aunt Jane spoke, the light of other days shone for me, too, and in its
radiance the commonplace faded out of sight.

We traveled in a circle, and our ride ended where it had begun. As we
paused at the drinking-fountain to let old Nelly quench her thirst,
Aunt Jane leaned out of the buggy and looked wistfully up and down the
square. I knew what was in her heart. She was thinking that, perhaps,
this was the last time she would see the town.

"It's a curious thing, child," she said finally, "that while folks are
growin' old, the towns they live in are growin' young. The town I
ricollect when I was a young gyirl is the old town, and now, when I'm
old, the town's young, and growin' younger and newer every day. Ain't
it a pity folks can't g