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A DROVE of cattle, followed by a man on horse-back, and surrounded by an active collie dog, came slowly into Roxbury town in the afternoon of a day in July, 1698, and paused at the Parting Stone, or, to be more accurate, at the Parting, for the Stone was not there then.

It is now, however, and if you like, you may go to Roxbury and see and read, as people have been doing for a century and a half, upon its honest eastern face,—

while the northern side directs you "To Cambridge and Watertown," and the southern one more generously gives you the route "To Dedham and Rhode Island." It is only a curiosity now; but when Paul Dudley set it at the junction of two lonely country roads just behind his own house, it was as much a convenience as the guide-boards we