There was Paul faithfully at the ferry, and as I came off he rushed up to me and threw his arms around me and kissed me affectionately. Did I kiss him back? I am afraid not. He took the grip out of my hand and carried it to the Brooklyn Bridge. Then we boarded a car. I asked him where we were going, and he said, mysteriously, “To Harry’s.” A surprise was awaiting me, apparently. As we entered the little alley of a store in the Italian quarter, I looked about me and saw no one. But suddenly there was a burst of laughter from a dozen voices, a door or two opened violently, and my whole family was upon me,--brothers, a new sister-in-law, cousins of various degrees, some old people, a few children. They rushed me into the apartment behind the store, pelting me with endearments and with questions. The table was set as for a Purim feast. There was an odor of pot-roasted chicken, and my eye caught a glimpse of chopped eggplant. As the meal progressed, my heart was touched by their loving thoughtfulness. Nothing had been omitted,--not even the red wine and the Turkish peas and rice. Harry and every one else kept on urging me to eat. “It’s a long time since you have had a real meal,” said my sister-in-law. How true it was! But I felt constrained, and ate very little. Here were the people and the things I had so longed to be with; but I caught myself regarding them with the eyes of a Western American. Suddenly--at one glance, as it were--I grasped the answer to the problem that had puzzled me so long; for here in the persons of those dear to me I was seeing myself as those others had seen me. I went about revisiting old scenes, and found that everything had changed in my brief absence. My friends were not the same; the East Side was not the same. They never would be the same. What had come over them? My kinsfolk and my old companions looked me over and declared that it was I who had become transformed. I had become soberer. I carried myself differently. There was an unfamiliar reserve, something mingled of coldness and melancholy, in my eye. My very speech had a new intonation. It was more incisive, but, less fluent, less cordial, they thought. Perhaps so. At any rate, while my people were still dear to me, and always would be dear to me, the atmosphere about them repelled me. If it _was_ I who had changed, then, as I took in the little world I had emerged from, I could not help telling myself that the change was a salutary one.