Reduced in appearance to little more than a bridle-path, it was to be
traced, without the hamlet, between high fences of wood, for a mile or
two, to the points where it entered the forest. Here and there, roses were
pressing through the openings of the fences before the doors of the
different habitations, and bushes of fragrant lilacs stood in the angles
of most of the courts.
The dwellings were detached. Each occupied its own insulated plot of
ground, with a garden in its rear. The out-buildings were thrown to that
distance which the cheapness of land, and security from fire, rendered
both easy and expedient.
The church stood in the centre of the highway, and near one end of the
hamlet. In the exterior and ornaments of the important temple, the taste
of the times had been fastidiously consulted, its form and simplicity
furnishing no slight resemblance to the self-denying doctrines and quaint
humors of the religionists who worshipped beneath its roof. The building,
like all the rest, was of wood, and externally of two stories. It
possessed a tower, without a spire; the former alone serving to betray its
sacred character.
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