or departure without delay.

Tender remonstrances, studied expostulations, were alike of no avail, and
they helped me to pack, finally--those dear good people at home--putting
as brave a face as they could upon it, and hoping for the best. My father
assured my mother, though with trembling lip and tearful eye, that "God
would temper the wind to the shorn lamb." I smiled at the part I was
meant to play in this cheerful allegory, though it seemed to me rather
inappropriate, as I had a new sealskin cloak that very winter.

At the last I gathered from the new and sprightlier form which the family
submissiveness assumed, as well as from certain inadvertent disclosures
of Bridget's, that I was confidently expected home again "in the course
of a week or two." And I thereupon doubly confirmed myself in the resolve
to see this thing through or die in the attempt.

I cannot define the motives which actuated me at this time. They do not
appear to have flowed in a clear and pellucid stream. I discover a thirst
for the surprising and experimental, for situations, dilemmas, and
emergencies, sustained by the most sublime recklessness as to
consequences. Then I see a dread of sinking into humdrum--the impulse
never to be at rest; deeper than all this, I find a secret
dissatisfaction with myself, a vague longing to use the best that is in
me to some true purpose; a desire to leave the tangled skein, and "begin
all over again."

It was early in January when I set out on my mission to the distant
shores of Cape Cod. It was also, I remember, very early in the morning,
and John Cable occupied a seat in the car. I had reason to know that John
shared in the family disapproval of my sublime conduct. He sat, looking
very glum behind his paper, and appeared not to notice me when I came in.
Having finished reading his paper, he gnawed his moustache and gazed,
still with glaring unconsciousness of my presence, out of the window. But
as we neared Hartford, where I was to take the train for Boston, he came
over to where I sat.

"I hope you'll enjoy yourself at Sandy Creek this winter," he said.

Now, I knew that John had designed this as sarcasm the most scathing, but
he was himself conscious of failure, and the thought filled him with
deeper gloom. He sought to reveal his baffled intentions in a scowl,
which lent to his manly and intelligent features the darkness of
spiritual night. And I replied, that "the recollection of his face, as it
the