miles. "Give us a
chance to wash up and we'll be ready for anything," she said with brave
intonation.

We took her at her word. With merciless enthusiasm we hurried them to
their hotel and as soon as they had bathed and eaten a hasty lunch, we
started out with intent to astonish and delight them. Here was another
table at "the feast of life" from which we did not intend they should
rise unsatisfied. "This shall be the richest experience of their lives,"
we said.

With a wheeled chair to save mother from the fatigue of walking we
started down the line and so rapidly did we pass from one stupendous
vista to another that we saw in a few hours many of the inside exhibits
and all of the finest exteriors--not to mention a glimpse of the
polyglot amazements of the Midway.

In pursuance of our plan to watch the lights come on, we ate our supper
in one of the big restaurants on the grounds and at eight o'clock
entered the Court of Honor. It chanced to be a moonlit night, and as
lamps were lit and the waters of the lagoon began to reflect the
gleaming walls of the great palaces with their sculptured ornaments,
and boats of quaint shape filled with singers came and went beneath the
arching bridges, the wonder and the beauty of it all moved these
dwellers of the level lands to tears of joy which was almost as poignant
as pain. In addition to its grandeur the scene had for them the
transitory quality of an autumn sunset, a splendor which they would
never see again.

Stunned by the majesty of the vision, my mother sat in her chair,
visioning it all yet comprehending little of its meaning. Her life had
been spent among homely small things, and these gorgeous scenes dazzled
her, overwhelmed her, letting in upon her in one mighty flood a thousand
stupefying suggestions of the art and history and poetry of the world.
She was old and she was ill, and her brain ached with the weight of its
new conceptions. Her face grew troubled and wistful, and her eyes as big
and dark as those of a child.

At last utterly overcome she leaned her head against my arm, closed her
eyes and said, "Take me home. I can't stand any more of it."

Sadly I took her away, back to her room, realizing that we had been too
eager. We had oppressed her with the exotic, the magnificent. She was
too old and too feeble to enjoy as we had hoped she would enjoy, the
color and music and thronging streets of The Magic City.

At the end of the third day father said, "We