It was with the memory of these experiences resting heavily upon me that I stood hesitatingly before the stage door.  The driver, about to mount, was for a moment illuminated by the open door of the hotel.  He had the wearied look which was the distinguishing expression of Wingdam.  Satisfied that I was properly waybilled and receipted for, he took no further notice of me.  I looked longingly at the box seat, but he did not respond to the appeal.  I flung my carpetbag into the chasm, dived recklessly after it, and—­before I was fairly seated—­with a great sigh, a creaking of unwilling springs, complaining bolts, and harshly expostulating axle, we moved away.  Rather the hotel door slipped behind, the sound of the piano sank to rest, and the night and its shadows moved solemnly upon us.

To say it was dark expressed but faintly the pitchy obscurity that encompassed the vehicle.  The roadside trees were scarcely distinguishable as deeper masses of shadow; I knew them only by the peculiar sodden odor that from time to time sluggishly flowed in at the open window as we rolled by.  We proceeded slowly; so leisurely that, leaning from the carriage, I more than once detected the fragrant sigh of some astonished cow, whose ruminating repose upon the highway we had ruthlessly disturbed.  But in the darkness our progress, more the guidance of some mysterious instinct than any apparent volition of our own, gave an indefinable charm of security to our journey that a moment’s hesitation or indecision on the part of the driver would have destroyed.

I had indulged a hope that in the empty vehicle I might obtain that rest so often denied me in its crowded condition.  It was a weak delusion.  When I stretched out my limbs it was only to find that the ordinary conveniences for making several people distinctly uncomfortable were distributed throughout my individual frame.  At last, resting my arms on the straps, by dint of much gymnastic effort I became sufficiently composed to be aware of a more refined species of torture.  The springs of the stage, rising and falling regularly, produced a rhythmical beat which began to absorb my attention painfully.  Slowly this thumping merged into a senseless echo of the mysterious female of the hotel parlor, and shaped itself into this awful and benumbing axiom—­“Praise-to-the-face-is-open-disgrace.  Praise-to-the-face-is-open-disgrace.”  Inequalities of the road only quickened its utterance or drawled it to an exasperating length.

It was of no use to consider the statement seriously.  It was of no use to except to it indignantly.  It was of no use to recall the many instances where praise to the face had redounded to the everlasting honor of praiser and bepraised; of no use to dwell sentimentally on modest genius and courage lifted up and strengthened by open commendation; of no use to except to the mysterious female, to picture her as rearing a thin-blooded generation on selfish and mechanically repeated axioms—­all this failed to counteract the monotonous repetition of this sentence.  There was nothing to do but to give in—­and I was about to accept it weakly, as we too often treat other illusions of darkness and necessity, for the time being, when I became aware of some other annoyance that had been forcing itself upon me for the last few moments.  How quiet the driver was!