,
after which I had no difficulty in recognizing the smooth pavement of
the entrance to the Park or the roll down Fifth Avenue afterwards. "They
have thought to confuse me by an extra mile or so of travel," thought I,
with some complacency, "but the streets of New York are too simply laid
out to lend themselves to any such easy mode of mystification." Yet I
have thought since then how, with a smarter man on the box, the affair
might have been conducted so as to have baffled the oldest citizen in
any attempt at calculation.

When we stopped in front of the Albemarle I quietly thanked the woman
who had conducted me, and stepped to the ground. Instantly the door shut
behind me, the carriage drove off, and I was left standing there like a
man suddenly awakened from a dream.

Entering my hotel, I ordered supper, thinking that the very practical
occupation of eating would serve to divert my mind into its ordinary
channels. But the dream, if dream it was, had made too vivid an
impression to be shaken off so easily. It followed me to the hall in the
evening and mingled with every chord I struck.

I could scarcely sleep that night for thinking of the sweet child's face
that had blossomed into a woman's before my eyes, and what a woman! With
the first hint of daylight I rose, and as soon as it was in any degree
suitable to be out, hired a cab and proceeded to the corner of
Fifty-ninth Street and Madison Avenue, where, according to my
calculations of the evening before, we had crossed the car track which
had first interrupted me in that very original method of computing
distance of which I have already spoken, a method by the way, which you
must acknowledge is an improvement on the boy's plan of finding his way
back from the woods by means of the bread-crumbs he had scattered behind
him, forgetting that the birds would eat up his crumbs and leave him
without a clew. Bidding the driver proceed at the ordinary jog trot down
the avenue, I laid my finger on my wrist, and counted each throb of my
pulse till I had reached the magical number seven hundred and sixty-two.
Then putting my head out of the window, I bade him stop. We were in the
middle of a block, but that did not disconcert me. I had not expected to
gain more than an approximate idea of the spot where we had first turned
into the avenue, it being impossible to regulate the horses' pace so as
to tally with that taken by the span of the night before, even if the
pulsations