The station-keeper was not there; his house was near by, but hidden by a grove of maples, and Anne, standing on the platform, seemed all alone, the two shining rails stretching north and south having the peculiarly solitary aspect which a one-track railway always has among green fields, with no sign of life in sight. No train has passed, or ever will pass. It is all a dream. She walked to and fro. She could see into the waiting-room, which was adorned with three framed texts, and another placard not religiously intended, but referring, on the contrary, to steamboats, which might yet be so interpreted, namely, "Take the Providence Line." She noted the drearily ugly round stove, faded below to white, planted in a sand-filled box; she saw the bench, railed off into single seats by iron elbows, and remembered that during her journey eastward, two, if not three, of these places were generally filled with the packages of some solitary female of middle age, clad in half-mourning, who remained stonily unobservant of the longing glances cast upon the space she occupied. These thoughts came to her mechanically. When a decision has finally been made, and for the present nothing more can be done, the mind goes wandering off on trivial errands; the flight of a bird, the passage of the fairy car of thistle-down, are sufficient to set it in motion. It seemed to her that she had been there a long time, when a step came through the grove: Hosea Plympton--or, as he was called in the neighborhood, Hosy Plim--was unlocking the station door. Anne bought her ticket, and had her trunk checked; she hoped to reach the half-house before midnight. Hosy having attended to his official business with dignity, now came out to converse unofficially with his one passenger. "From Caryl's, ain't you?" "Yes," replied Anne. "Goin' to New York?" "Yes." "I haven't yet ben to that me-tropo-lis," said Hosy. "On some accounts I should admire to go, on others not. Ben long at Caryl's?" "Yes, some time." "My wife's cousin helps over there; Mirandy's her name. And she tells me, Mirandy does, that the heap of washing over to that house is a sight to see. She tells me, Mirandy does, that they don't especial dress up for the Sabbath over there, not so much even as on other days." "That is true, I believe." "Sing'lar," said the little man, "what folks 'll do as has the money! They don't seem to be capable of enj'ying themselves exactly; and p'r'aps that's what Providence intends. We haven't had city folks at Caryl's until lately, miss, you see; and I confess they've ben a continooal study to me ever since. 'Tis amazin' the ways the Lord'll take to make us contented with our lot. Till I _see_ 'em, I thought 'em most downright and all everlastin' to be envied. But _now_ I feel the ba'm of comfort and innard strengthenin' when I see how little they know _how_ to enj'y themselves, after all. Here's the train, miss."