man who had been lifted up for a great mental strain and
was gradually letting down again to earth.

"We are coming toward the close," he said. "We are more quiet than we
have been here before. Familiar faces and forms that have moved in and
out among these trees, for two weeks past, have gone. Only a few hours
and we are going; only a few hours and utter silence will fall upon
Chautauqua."

"Oh dear!" murmured Eurie, "why _will_ he be so forlorn! I don't see why
I need care so much! Who would have supposed I could!"

"Hush!" said Marion, and she surreptitiously wiped away a tear. "A love
feast," Dr. Vincent said they were going to have, for that last evening;
it was very much like that. The farewell from Canada came next; the
speaker said he had been "thawed out," meant to have America annexed to
Canada! Indeed they had already been annexed; in heart and soul! "Who's
who?" said he, and "what's what? Who knows?" There was just enough of
the comical mixed with the pathetic in this address to steady many a
tremulous heart.

Dr. Presbry followed in much the same strain, closing, though, with such
a tender tribute to some who had been at the assembly the year before,
and had since gone to join the assembly that never breaks up, that the
tears came to the surface again. But those blessed Tennesseeans just at
that point made the grounds ring with the chorus, "Oh jubilee! jubilee!
the Christian religion is jubilee!" and followed it with: "I've been a
long time in the house of God, and I ain't got weary yet."

By that time our girls looked at each other with faces on which tears
and smiles struggled for the mastery.

"Shall we laugh, or cry?" whispered Eurie, and then they giggled
outright. But they sobered instantly and sat upright, ready to listen,
for the next one who appeared on the platform was Dr. Deems.

He, too, commenced as if the spell of the parting was upon him. "He was
too tired," he said, "to make a short speech. Some one asked Walter
Scott why he didn't put a certain book of his into one volume instead
of five. And he said he hadn't time. It took five weeks to prepare a
speech three minutes long. And then he warmed, and grew with his subject
until the beautiful thoughts fell around them like pearls. Not only
beautiful, but searching.

"No man," said he, "_dares_ to make a careless speech at Chautauqua,
there are too many to treasure it up, to plant it again." Of course he
knew nothing about those girls,