The village street might be
Miss Mitford's, the well-to-do house Jane Austen's own fancy, in its
warm brick and comfortable decorum. She laughed a little as she thought
it.
"That is American," she said, "the habit of comparing every stick
and stone and breathing thing to some literary parallel. We almost
invariably say that things remind us of pictures or books--most usually
books. It seems a little crude, but perhaps it means that we are an
intensely literary and artistic people."
She continued to find comparisons revealing to her their appositeness,
until her journey had ended by the train's slackening speed and coming
to a standstill before the rural-looking little station which had
presented its quaint aspect to Lady Anstruthers on her home-coming of
years before.
It had not, during the years which certainly had given time for change,
altered in the least. The station master had grown stouter and more
rosy, and came forward with his respectful, hospitable air, to attend to
the unusual-looking young lady, who was the only first-class passenger.
He thought she must be a visitor expected at some country house, but
none of the carriages, whose coachmen were his familiar acquaintances,
were in waiting.
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