We had to sleep at Mariposa Grove (Clark’s Hotel) in the evening.  We talked of nothing else but the wonderful trees until some one asked me if I was too tired to sing.  I was willing enough.  There was, in fact, a piano in the parlor—­an old, yellow-keyed out-of-tune Chickering which had seen better days somewhere—­and a spiral stool very rickety on its legs.  There were wax flowers under dusty globes.  Though no one of our party cared much for music, and the surroundings were anything but inspiring, still I longed to sing.

I sang a lot of things, and my tired audience no doubt thought I had done enough and ought to go to bed, which I did, after having received their thanks and seeing the heads of the servant-girls and various other heads and forms disappear from the veranda.

May 25th.

We left Clark’s early in the morning without having made a second trip to the trees, as we wanted to, but the time was nearing when John Cadwalader was to leave us for his trip around the world.  We were already too late as it was, and if anything should happen like another Gulliver across our downward path he would lose the steamer which starts from San Francisco in three days.  I sat in the favorite seat next to the driver and waved a long farewell to the beautiful forest which I shall probably never see again.

Here another funny thing happened.  Everything funny seems to happen at the end of our trip.  The driver (a new one, not the one of yesterday) after a long silence, and having changed a piece of straw he was chewing from one side of his mouth to the other many times, made up his mind to speak.  I did not speak first, though I longed to, as I am told it is not wise to speak to the man at the wheel, especially when the wheel happens to be a California coach and six horses.

“A beautiful day,” the driver ventured.

“Yes,” I said, “it is one of the most beautiful days I have ever seen.”

He, after a long pause, said, “Was you in the hotel parlor last night?”

“Yes,” I said, “I was.”

“Did you hear that lady sing?”

“Yes, I did.  Did you?”

“You bet I did.  I was standing with the rest of the folks out on the piazza.”

How curious it would be to hear a wild Western unvarnished, unprejudiced judgment of myself!  “What did you think of her singing?” I asked my companion.

He replied by asking, “Have you ever heard a nightingale, ma’m?”

“Oh yes, many times,” I answered, wondering what he would say next.

“Wal, I guess some of them nightingales will have to take a back seat when she sings.”

I actually blushed with pride.  I considered this was the greatest compliment I had ever had.

We arrived safely, without any adventure, at Sacramento, where John Cadwalader left us, and the rest of the party continued as far as Chicago together, where we bade each other good-by, each going his different way.