As we walked I would say, lightly,--"Do you like it here as well as you did back East ?"--or, still better, as sounding more chatty,--"How do you like it here ?"--an easy, masterful pause--"as well as you did back East ?" A thousand times had I rehearsed the inflections until they were perfect.

And now the time was come.
Whether I spoke at all or not until we reached her gate I have never known.

Dimly in my memory is a suggestion that when we passed Uncle Jerry Honeycutt, I confided to her that he sent to Chicago for his ear-trumpet and that it cost twelve dollars.

If I did this, she must have made a suitable response, though I retain nothing of it.
I only know that the sky was full of flaming meteors, that golden star dust rained upon us from an applauding heaven, that the earth rocked gently as we trod upon it.
Down the wonderful street we went, a strange street shimmering in mystic light--and then I was opening her gate.

I, afterward, decided that surely at this moment, with the gate between us, I would have remembered--superbly would I have said, "How do you like it here ?--as well as you did back East ?" But, two staring boys passed us, and one of them spoke thus:-- "There's Horsehead Blake--hello, Horsehead!" "That ain't old Horsehead," said the other.
"'Tis, too--ain't that _you_, Horsehead ?" "How do you do, boys!" I answered loftily, and they passed on appeased.
"Do they call you Horsehead ?" she asked.
"Oh, yes!" I replied brightly.