[Illustration:  Ralph Waldo Emerson’s second signature.]

The boy was almost dazed at the instantaneous transformation in the man!

Miss Alcott now grasped this moment to say:  “Well, we must be going!”

“So soon?” said Emerson, rising and smiling.  Then turning to Miss Alcott he said:  “It was very kind of you, Louisa, to run over this morning and bring your young friend.”

Then turning to the boy he said:  “Thank you so much for coming to see me.  You must come over again while you are with the Alcotts.  Good morning!  Isn’t it a beautiful day out?” he said, and as he shook the boy’s hand there was a warm grasp in it, the fingers closed around those of the boy, and as Edward looked into those deep eyes they twinkled and smiled back.

The going was all so different from the coming.  The boy was grateful that his last impression was of a moment when the eye kindled and the hand pulsated.

The two walked back to the Alcott home in an almost unbroken silence.  Once Edward ventured to remark: 

“You can have no idea, Miss Alcott, how grateful I am to you.”

“Well, my boy,” she answered, “Phillips Brooks may be right:  that it is something to have seen him even so, than not to have seen him at all.  But to us it is so sad, so very sad.  The twilight is gently closing in.”

And so it proved—­just five months afterward.

Eventful day after eventful day followed in Edward’s Boston visit.  The following morning he spent with Wendell Phillips, who presented him with letters from William Lloyd Garrison, Lucretia Mott, and other famous persons; and then, writing a letter of introduction to Charles Francis Adams, whom he enjoined to give the boy autograph letters from his two presidential forbears, John Adams and John Quincy Adams, sent Edward on his way rejoicing.  Mr. Adams received the boy with equal graciousness and liberality.  Wonderful letters from the two Adamses were his when he left.

And then, taking the train for New York, Edward Bok went home, sitting up all night in a day-coach for the double purpose of saving the cost of a sleeping-berth and of having a chance to classify and clarify the events of the most wonderful week in his life!

CHAPTER VII

A PLUNGE INTO WALL STREET

The father of Edward Bok passed away when Edward was eighteen years of age, and it was found that the amount of the small insurance left behind would barely cover the funeral expenses.  Hence the two boys faced the problem of supporting the mother on their meagre income.  They determined to have but one goal:  to put their mother back to that life of comfort to which she had been brought up and was formerly accustomed.  But that was not possible on their income.  It was evident that other employment must be taken on during the evenings.