A coloured folks’ meeting which I attended there was like the things one reads about: The preacher’s text was “Under a Palm Tree”; he pronounced it “pam” tree, and nearly convulsed us with his big words misapplied. An “experience meeting” followed. Beginning quietly, the experiences and prayers gradually increased in fervour and unction till finally the dusky worshippers were all on their knees--one eloquent supplicant held forth in a lengthy, moving appeal, while the others kept up a monotonous undertone--a weird, melodious sing-song, with interjections of “Amen!” “Hallelujah!” and “Bless de Lawd!” as they swayed and chanted in an abandonment of religious fervour. At St. Augustine symptoms of “malaria,” which I had developed while in Palatka, suddenly left me. (Our “Dr. Conrad” used to say scornfully, “‘Malaria’ is simply a convenient term to express the unknown.”) What invigoration! what skies! and the sea! Stealing away to the Sea Wall and old Fort Marion, I would look far out across the waters and dream--of what, I know not--just dream. Keen as was already my realization that life is real and earnest, I was yet reluctant to pass through “girlhood’s Gate of Dreams”; I well knew that on my return North I must decide where I should begin to practise; must engage in the work for which the preceding years had been preparing me; but there on the old Sea Wall I could still hold back from the oncoming Future. On our return we spent some delightful weeks in Washington; saw hundreds of children on Easter Monday at their egg-rolling on the White House lawn, and heard their united voices as they greeted President Harrison when he came out to watch them, with Baby McKee in his arms. In New York, we witnessed the splendid spectacle of the Washington Centennial celebration; and then, in early May, returned to our little village amid the drumlins. Spectacles and parades have never much interested me, but, besides the Washington Centennial parade, I recall one other (a few years later, however) which stands out significantly, more especially because of my own reactions to it. As a girl I had always been more moved by history or fiction dealing with any other nationality than with my own. When, as children, we had played at being Somebody Else, I chose to be French, Scotch, German--anything but American! The romance of the distant, the unattainable! In school I was never interested in American history, but the history of Greece and Rome--what charm they had!