"But I don't know that I wish to influence her in favour of the supper and
dance; I don't know that I believe in them," said Annie, cowed and troubled
by the affair.

"That doesn't make the slightest difference," said Mrs. Munger impartially.
"All you will have to do is to keep still. I will put the case to her."

She checked the pony before the bar which the flagman at the railroad
crossing had let down, while a long freight train clattered deafeningly
by, and then drove bumping and jouncing across the tracks. "I suppose you
remember what 'Over the Track' means in Hatboro'?"

"Oh yes," said Annie, with a smile. "Social perdition at the least. You
don't mean that Mrs. Wilmington lives 'Over the Track'?"

"Yes. It isn't so bad as it used to be, socially. Mr. Wilmington has built
a very fine house on this side, and there are several pretty Queen Anne
cottages going up."

They drove along under the elms which here stood somewhat at random about
the wide, grassless street, between the high, windowy bulks of the shoe
shops and hat shops. The dust gradually freed itself from the cinders
about the tracks, and it hardened into a handsome, newly made road beyond
the houses of the shop hands. They passed some open lots, and then, on a
pleasant rise of ground, they came to a stately residence, lifted still
higher on its underpinning of granite blocks. It was built in a Boston
suburban taste of twenty years ago, with a lofty mansard-roof, and it was
painted the stone-grey colour which was once esteemed for being so quiet.
The lawn before it sloped down to the road, where it ended smoothly at the
brink of a neat stone wall. A black asphalt path curved from the steps by
which you mounted from the street to the steps by which you mounted to the
heavy portico before the massive black walnut doors.