hem selves. The one human phenomenon that filled
us little ones with mortal terror was an unknown "man with a pack on
his back." I do not know what we thought he would do with us, but the
sight of one always sent us breathless with fright to the shelter of
the maternal wing. I did not at all like the picture of Christian on
his way to the wicket-gate, in "Pilgrim's Progress," before I had read
the book, because he had "a pack on his back." But there was really
nothing to be afraid of in those simple, honest old times. I suppose we
children would not have known how happy and safe we were, in our
secluded lane, if we had not conjured up a few imaginary fears.

Long as it is since the rural features of our lane were entirely
obliterated, my feet often go back and press, in memory, its
grass-grown borders, and in delight and liberty I am a child again. Its
narrow limits were once my whole known world. Even then it seemed to me
as if it might lead everywhere; and it was indeed but the beginning of
a road which must lengthen and widen beneath my feet forever.

II.

SCHOOLROOM AND MEETING-HOUSE.

THERE were only two or three houses between ours and the main street,
and then our lane came out directly opposite the finest house in town,
a three-story edifice of brick, painted white, the "Colonel's"
residence. There was a spacious garden behind it, from which we caught
glimpses and perfumes of unknown flowers. Over its high walls hung
boughs of splendid great yellow sweet apples, which, when they fell on
the outside, we children considered as our perquisites. When I first
read about the apples of the Hesperides, my idea of them was that they
were like the Colonel's "pumpkin-sweetings."

Beyond the garden were wide green fields which reached eastward down to
the beach. It was one of those large old estates which used to give to
the very heart of our New England coast towns a delightful breeziness
and roominess.

A coach-and-pair was one of the appurtenances of this estate, with a
coachman on the box; and when he took the family out for an airing we
small children thought it was a sort of Cinderella spectacle, prepared
expressly for us.

It was not, however, quite so interesting as the Boston stage-coach,
that rolled regularly every day past the head of our lane into and out
of its headquarters, a big, unpainted stable close at hand. This
stage-coach, in our minds, meant the city,--twenty miles off; an
immeasurable dis