Is--are--you Dallas Lore--"

"Sharp?" I said, finishing for him. "Yes, sir, this is Dallas Lore
Sharp, but these are not his over-alls--not yet; for they have never
been washed and are about three sizes too large for him."

He looked at me, a little undone, I thought, disappointed, maybe, and a
bit embarrassed at having been betrayed by overalls and rolled-up
sleeves and shovels. He had not expected the overalls, not new ones,
anyhow. And why are new overalls so terribly new and unwashed! Only a
woman, only a man's wife, is fitted to buy his overalls, for she only
is capable of allowing enough for shrinkage. To-day I was in my new
pair, but not of them, not being able to get near enough to them for
that.

"I am getting old," he went on quickly, his face clearing; "my
perceptions are not so keen, nor my memory so quick as it used to be.
I should have known that 'good writing must have a pre-literary
existence as lived reality; the writing must be only the necessary
accident of its being lived over again in thought'"--quoting verbatim,
though I was slow in discovering it, from an essay of mine, published
years before.

It was now my turn to allow for shrinkage. Had he learned this passage
for the visit and applied it thus by chance? My face must have showed
my wonder, my incredulity, indeed, for explaining himself he said,--

"I am a literary pilgrim, sir--"

"Who has surely lost his way," I ventured.

Then with a smile that made no more allowances necessary he assured
me,--

"Oh, no, sir! I am quite at home in the hills of Hingham. I have been
out at Concord for a few days, and am now on the main road from Concord
to Dubuque. I am Mr. Kinnier, Dr. Kinnier, of Dubuque, Iowa,
and"--releasing my hand--"let me see"--pausing as we reached the top of
the hill, and looking about in search of something--"Ah, yes [to
himself], there on the horizon they stand, those two village spires,
'those tapering steeples where they look up to worship toward the sky,
and look down to scowl across the street'"--quoting again, word for
word, from another of my essays. Then to me: "They are a little
farther away and a little closer together than I expected to see
them--too close [to himself again] for God to tell from which side of
the street the prayers and praises come, mingling as they must in the
air."

He said it with such thought-out conviction, such sweet sorrow, and
with such relief that I began now to fear for wha