The doors, too, were arched and low, some with oaken portals and quaint benches, where the former inhabitants had sat on summer evenings.

The windows were latticed in little diamond panes, that seemed to wink and blink upon the passengers as if they were dim of sight.

They had long since got clear of the smoke and furnaces, except in one or two solitary instances, where a factory planted among fields withered the space about it, like a burning mountain.

When they had passed through this town, they entered again upon the country, and began to draw near their place of destination.
It was not so near, however, but that they spent another night upon the road; not that their doing so was quite an act of necessity, but that the schoolmaster, when they approached within a few miles of his village, had a fidgety sense of his dignity as the new clerk, and was unwilling to make his entry in dusty shoes, and travel-disordered dress.

It was a fine, clear, autumn morning, when they came upon the scene of his promotion, and stopped to contemplate its beauties.
'See--here's the church!' cried the delighted schoolmaster in a low voice; 'and that old building close beside it, is the schoolhouse, I'll be sworn.