"I shall stay to-night with a cousin at Burlington. Oh, there's
one more thing--you're to get a new suit of clothes at Albany, and,
remember, it must be very grand."
It was near train time, and they left the inn.
"I'm going to tell you everything," said she, as they were on their
way to the depot. "The day after to-morrow I am to see that
dreadful Roberts. I'm longing to give him his answer."
Not an hour before then Roberts had passed them on his way to
Boston.
XXXV
At the Sign of the Golden Spool[1]
[1 The author desires to say that this chapter relates to no shop
now in existence.]
It was early May and a bright morning in Hillsborough. There were
lines of stores and houses on either side of the main thoroughfare
from the river to Moosehead Inn, a long, low, white building that
faced the public square. Hunters coming off its veranda and gazing
down the street, as if sighting over gun-barrels at the bridge,
were wont to reckon the distance "nigh on to forty rod." There
were "Boston Stores" and "Great Emporiums" and shops, modest as
they were small, in that forty rods of Hillsborough. Midway was a
little white building, its eaves within reach of one's hand, its
gable on the line of the sidewalk overhanging which, from a crane
above the door, was a big, golden spool.
Pages:
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293