use of Geoffrey Chaucer.

The Rector of Exeter College had invited a group of the leaders of the
convention to a luncheon in Exeter and, because I was the only
American, I was asked to be present and deliver a short address.

The grounds of Exeter show the good results of the four or five
hundred years' care bestowed upon them. In my brief sojourn in Oxford
as a student I had been chased out of the grounds of Exeter by the
caretaker, under the suspicion that I was a burglar, taking the
measure of the walks, windows, doors, etc.

I told this story to a man with whom I later exchanged cards; he was
an old man and his card, read "W. Creese, Y.M.C.A. secretary, June 6,
1844."

"You were in early, brother," I said. "Yes," he said modestly, "I was
in _first_." He helped George Williams to organize the first branch of
the Y.M.C.A. My story went the rounds of those invited to luncheon and
prepared the way for the address I delivered.

The first thing I did on my return from Europe was to visit the last
known address of the girl friend of my youth. It was in a Negro
quarter of the city.

"Does Mrs. G---- live here?" I asked the coloured woman who opened the
door.

"She did, mistah--but she done gone left, dis mawnin'."

"Do you know where she has gone?"

"Yes'r, she done squeezed in wif ol' Mammy Jackson," and she pointed
out the tenement.

As I passed down the steps I noticed a small pile of furniture on the
sidewalk. Something impelled me to ask about it.

"Yes'r," the negress said, "dem's her house traps; d' landlord done
gone frow'd dem out."

I found her sitting with an old negress by the stove in a second-floor
back tenement.

"I bring you a message of love from your mother," I said, without
making myself known. We talked for a few minutes. I saw nothing
whatever of the girl of long ago. There was a little of the voice--the
fine musical voice--but nothing of form, nothing of feature. Deep
lines of care and suffering marred her face and labour had calloused
her hands. She was poorly dressed--had been ill and out of work, and
behind in her rent. Too proud to beg, she was starving with her
neighbours, the black people. I excused myself, found the landlord,
and rearranged the home she had so heroically struggled to hold
intact.

"Do you remember the farm at Moylena?" I asked.

"Yes, of course."

"And a farm boy----"

"Yes, yes," she said, adding: "those few days on that farm were the
only happy days of