I can feel yet the still
air of one early morning's start, and hear the talk between my
aunt and the hotel people about the luggage. My aunt was a
great traveller and wanted no one to help her or manage for
her. I remember acutely a beggar who spoke to us on the
sidewalk at Washington. We staid over a few days in
Washington, and then hurried on; for when she was on the road
my aunt Gary lost not a minute. We went, I presume, as fast as
we could without travelling all night; and our last day's
journey added that too.
By that time my head was getting steadied, perhaps, from the
grief which had bewildered it; or grief was settling down and
taking its proper place at the bottom of my heart, leaving the
surface as usual. For twelve hours that day we went by a slow
railway train through a country of weary monotony. Endless
forests of pine seemed all that was to be seen; scarce ever a
village; here and there a miserable clearing and forlorn-
looking house; here and there stoppages of a few minutes to
let somebody out or take somebody in; once, to my great
surprise, a stop of rather more than a few minutes to
accommodate a lady who wanted some flowers gathered for her.
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