We did not wish to ruffle our hair unnecessarily by playing croquet or walking, so we all sat very sedately in the music-room watching for the 5.15 train to arrive.  It came at last.  We rushed out on the piazza, but recognized no one among the few passengers who alighted.

Disappointment number one.  However, they will surely come at half-past six, we argued, and taking up some books and work, we waited patiently until the next train arrived.  Again we ran out upon the piazza.  Papa was upon the platform at the depot, but we saw no other figure that looked familiar.

“What did I tell you, Ida,” said I solemnly, “when, against my entreaties, three candles were lighted last night?”

Never before was papa so long in walking up from the station—­I suppose for the reason that he came laden with messages, notes, and telegrams.  His “young chief” was detained in the editorial rooms by affairs of great moment; another gentleman had been summoned to the bedside of his father, who was in a dying condition; two other gentlemen had plunged rashly into the preliminary steps to matrimony, and were, I suppose, engaged in serenading their fiancees, while the other two had apparently been made way with, for from them we had no message of any sort.

The crowning injury was the receipt of a book from a friend who is in the habit of supplying me with the latest novels.  Usually I am pleased with the books she sends me, but a glance at the title, “’He Cometh Not,’ She Said,” made me hurl it to the farthest corner of the room; that was too much for any one to bear.

We sat down with small appetites to the elaborate dinner that Lina had prepared, and went gloomily to bed at an early hour.

CHAPTER XXI.

The Story of Mr. Greeley’s Parents continued—­He accompanies his Mother to New Hampshire—­Her Sisters—­Three Thanksgivings in One Year—­Pickie as a Baby—­His Childhood—­Mrs. Greeley’s Careful Training—­His Playthings—­His Death—­A Letter from Margaret Fuller.

August 31.

“Mammi,” said I, waking from a deep reverie as I sat beside our bright wood-fire (for we have had two days of dashing rain, and fires have not been at all disagreeable), “did grandpapa ever return to New Hampshire after he left it in 1821?”

“No, my dear,” was the reply; “he never returned, nor did he manifest any desire to see his former home and his old friends again.  I suppose that all of his pleasant recollections of New Hampshire were superseded by the thought that it was the scene of his bankruptcy, and his proud spirit shrunk from meeting those who might remember that he had left Amherst a fugitive.  He was deeply attached to his forest home, and I do not think he ever had an hour of discomfort after he came there.  Father always expressed the wish that he might be buried upon his farm.  His old age was very serene and happy; he lived to see his ’hole in the forest’ become an extensive farm, and the vast wilderness that had surrounded him disappear, while the little tavern and cluster of log-houses across the State line from us grew to be the village of Clymer.