robs us of solitude, and system, and
order, but our world would now be desolate without her." Only when I
thought of what her grandfather was missing did I have a sense of
regret.

At our feast our daughter sat in the high chair which Katherine Herne
had given her, and looked upon the tiny, decorated tree with eyes of
rapture, deep, dark-blue eyes in which a seraphic light shone. Her life
was beginning far, very far, from the bleak prairie lands in which her
Daddy's winter holidays had been spent, and while the silver spoon in
her mouth was not of my giving, the one with which she bruised her
chair-arm, was veritably one of my rewards.

In order to continue my practice as an Author, I managed to sandwich the
writing of an occasional article between spells of minding the baby--and
working on club committees. I recall going to Princeton to tell Henry
Van Dyke's Club about "The Joys of the Trail," and it pleased me to be
introduced as a "Representative of the West." West Point received me in
this capacity, and I also read at one of Lounsbury's "Smokers" at Yale,
but I was kept from any undue self-congratulation by recognition of the
fact that my income was still considerably below the standard of a
railway engineer--as perhaps it should be. My "arriving" was always in
an accommodation train fifty minutes late.

Evidence of my literary success, if you look at it that way, may have
lain in an invitation to dine at Andrew Carnegie's, but a suspicion that
I was being patronized made me hesitate. It was only after I learned
that Burroughs and Gilder were going that I decided to accept, although
I could not see why the ironmaster should include me in his list. I had
never met him and was not eager for his recognition.

The guests (nearly all known to me) were most distinguished and it was
pleasant to meet with them, even in this palace. We marched into the
dining-room keeping step to the music of a bagpipe. The speaking which
followed the dinner was admirable. Hamilton Wright Mabie and John Finley
were especially adroit and graceful, and Carnegie, who had been
furnished with elaborate notes by his secretary, introduced his speakers
with tact and humor, although it was evident that in some cases he would
have been helpless without his literary furnishing--to which in my case
he referred with especial care.

He was an amazement to me. I could not imagine him in the role of "Iron
King," on the contrary he appeared more like a