"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!