ay to the Annual Reception, I met two of my fellow
republicans in Prince Albert Frock suits. At sight of me they started
with surprise--surprise and sorrow--exclaiming, "Look at Hamlin
Garland!" Assuming an expression of patrician ease, I replied, "Oh, yes,
I have conformed. In London one _must_ conform, you know.--The English
are quite inexorable in all matters of dress, you understand."

Howells, when I saw him next, smilingly listened to my tale and heartily
approved of my action, but Burroughs regarded it as a weak surrender. "A
silk hat and steel-pen coat on a Whitman Democrat," he said, "seems like
a make-believe," which, in a sense, it was.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Choice of the New Daughter

Although my mother met me each morning with a happy smile, she walked
with slower movement, and in studying her closely, after three months'
absence, I perceived unwelcome change. She was not as alert mentally or
physically as when I went away. A mysterious veil had fallen between her
wistful spirit and the outer world. Her vision was dimmer and her spirit
at times withdrawn, remote. She laughed in response to my jesting, but
there was an absent-minded sweetness in her smile, a tremulous quality
in her voice which disturbed me.

Her joy in my return, so accusing in its tenderness, led me to declare
that I would never again leave her, not even for a month. "You may count
on me hereafter," I said to her. "I'm going to quit traveling and settle
down near you."

"I hope you mean it this time," she replied soberly, and her words stung
for I recalled the many times I had disappointed her.

With a mass of work and correspondence waiting my hand I went from my
breakfast to my study. My forenoons thereafter were spent at my desk,
but with the understanding that if she got lonesome, mother was
privileged to interrupt, and it often happened that along about eleven I
would hear a softly-opened stair-door and then a call,--a timid call as
if she feared to disturb me--"Haven't you done enough? Can't you come
now?" There was no resisting this appeal. Dropping my pen, I went below
and gave the rest of my day to her.

We possessed an ancient low-hung "Surrey," a vehicle admirably fitted
for an invalid, and in this conveyance with a stout mare as motive power
we often drove away into the country of a pleasant afternoon, sometimes
into Gill's Coulee, sometimes to Onalaska.

On these excursions my mother rode in silence, busied wit