east indeed, and the Atlantic Ocean was the next important
stopping-place. In Lin's new train, good gloves, patent-leathers, and
silence prevailed throughout the sleeping-car, which was for Boston
without change. Had not home memories begun impetuously to flood his
mind, he would have felt himself conspicuous. Town clothes and
conventions had their due value with him. But just now the boy's single-
hearted thoughts were far from any surroundings, and he was murmuring to
himself, "To-morrow! tomorrow night!"

There were ladies in that blue plush car for Boston who looked at Lin for
thirty miles at a stretch; and by the time Albany was reached the next
day one or two of them commented that he was the most attractive-looking
man they had ever seen! Whereas, beyond his tallness, and wide-open,
jocular eyes, eyes that seemed those of a not highly conscientious wild
animal, there was nothing remarkable about young Lin except stage effect.
The conductor had been annoyed to have such a passenger; but the
cow-puncher troubled no one, and was extremely silent. So evidently was
he a piece of the true frontier that curious and hopeful
fellow-passengers, after watching him with diversion, more than once took
a seat next to him. He met their chatty inquiries with monosyllables so
few and so unprofitable in their quiet politeness that the passengers
soon gave him up. At Springfield he sent a telegram to his brother at the
great dry-goods establishment that employed him.

The train began its homestretch after Worcester, and whirled and swung by
hills and ponds he began to watch for, and through stations with old
wayside names. These flashed on Lin's eye as he sat with his hat off and
his forehead against the window, looking: Wellesley. Then, not long
after, Riverside. That was the Charles River, and did the picnic woods
used to be above the bridge or below? West Newton; Newtonville; Newton.