“We jested and laughed as we went merrily on. We were young and happy that brilliant summer morning. I remember how every leaf sparkled with the heavy dewdrops, and the air seemed to fairly intoxicate one like a draught of wine. I was fairly brimming over with delight. “We passed the old-fashioned white house with green blinds, peeping out from behind the pines, which I needed no one to tell me had been the home of the Concord seer; and a little further on appeared the brown-gabled house, nestled in a green hollow, and guarded by giant elms, where the Little Women lived their charming life. Just within these grounds stood the vine-covered Hillside Chapel, whither our steps were tending. We had passed little groups on our way, and now and then we caught a word of what they were saying; ‘first entelechy,’ ‘pure subjectivity,’ the ‘_ding an sich_,’ and so on, which in my hilarious mood served as a further theme for jest. “As we took our seats beneath the bust of Pestalozzi and beside the comfortable arm-chair always reserved for Mrs. Emerson, I scanned the audience closely. It was not a stylish one, and I felt a little inclined to poke fun at some of the antiquated bonnets; but my attention was attracted by the evident eagerness with which my new friend was studying the face of the speaker. “He was a middle-aged man, with close-clipped gray beard and spectacles, and a face that seemed to be the very personification of thought. The subject of the lecture was Immortality. I listened, vainly trying to understand, and feeling as though the essence of a thousand books was being crowded into that quiet morning’s talk. I had heard that this man was a German rationalist, and was undermining the foundations of Christianity; therefore I had prepared myself to see a cynic or a scoffer. I had thought that I would go, for once, to hear what he had to say; just to have an idea as to what it was all about. I felt all the excitement of doing something a little venturesome. “Dear me,” laughed Mildred; “how droll it all seems now, and what an ignorant little bigot I must have been!