the consciousness of anything quaint
or _bizarre_ in my appearance. I felt no mortification on account of
these treasures so intrinsically dear to my heart; but Grandma Keeler had
insisted on binding a mustard paste on my chest. It was a parting
request--I could not have refused--but in the close air of the car the
physical torture began to be extreme. Tears fell on the cedar spray at my
side, yet was I withal strangely, peacefully happy.

It was raining when I passed through Boston. Once more in the din of a
city, jolting noisily over the rough, uneven pavements, I found myself
wondering continually if the Keelers had reached home, and imagining how
the rain was falling gently, quietly, on the roof of the Ark.

At the next stage, at Hartford, I was half afraid that I should meet
brother or sister or some member of the family, and so have the complete
effect of my "surprise" destroyed; but I saw none of them. There were few
passengers on board the Newtown-bound train. It was raining still. I was
growing more and more glad at heart, and looking out with my arm pressed
against the window, when I heard a voice right over me--a soft, pitiful,
thrilling exclamation:--

"Great Heavens!"

I looked up and saw John Cable.

He sank slowly down into the seat in front of me and, for a moment,
neither of us spoke. I did not mind meeting John. I had not thought of
including him in the surprise. The sight of his familiar, friendly face
gave me a positive thrill of pleasure, but there was something in his
manner that kept me silent.

I said: "I am going to surprise them, John."

There was nothing offensive in the grave, swift glance with which John
Cable then took me in, me and my bouquet of wilted wild-flowers and my
small cedar trees, only a slow, solemn distinctness in his tone.

"You will succeed," he said. "Undoubtedly you will succeed."

Still I felt no resentment. A gentle, sorrowful perplexity filled my
breast.

"Why, do--I--look--very--very--unusual, John?" I questioned, and looking
in his face I wondered why, in the old days of careless jest and
repartee, he had never seemed so moved.

More words he said, but I could not bear them then, and tears from an
inward pain fell on the cedar spray, yet I was glad that I had not grown
so unusual that people would never like me any more.

Next, the surprise was a success, as John Cable had predicted, but that
was the one point in my career in which my genius had never fai