The town, being unfamiliar to her, struck her newly.

She saw the expression on its face better.

It was a large trading city, compactly built, shut in by hills.

It had an anxious, harassed look, like a speculator concluding a keen bargain; the very dwelling-houses smelt of trade, having shops in the lower stories; in the outskirts, where there are cottages in other cities, there were mills here; the trees, which some deluded dreamer had planted on the flat pavements, had all grown up into abrupt Lombardy poplars, knowing their best policy was to keep out of the way; the boys, playing marbles under them, played sharply "for keeps;" the bony old dray-horses, plodding through the dusty crowds, had speculative eyes, that measured their oats at night with a "you-don't-cheat-me" look.

Even the churches had not the grave repose of the old brown house yonder in the hills, where the few field-people--Arians, Calvinists, Churchmen--gathered every Sunday, and air and sunshine and God's charity made the day holy.