With a young girl's joy she packed her trunk and took the train for New York, and at sunset, as she rode in the ferry over the North River, she stood bravely out on deck, faced the bitter and salt wind, and saw, above the flush of the waters, that breathless skyline which, like the prow of some giant ship, seemed making out to sea. Lights twinkled in windows, signal-lamps gleamed red and green on the piers, chimneys smoked, and as the ferry nosed its way among the busy craft of the river, Myra exulted. She was coming back! This again was New York, real, right there, unbudged, her thousand lights like voices calling her home. The ferry landed; she hurried out and took a surface car And how good the crowd seemed, how warm the noise and the lights, what gladness was in the evening ebb-tide of people, how splendid the avenues shone with their sparkle and their shops and their traffic! She felt again the good hard pave under her feet. She met again a hundred familiar scenes. The vast flood of life seemed to engulf her, suck her up as if to say: "Well, you're here again! Come, there is room! Another human being!" All about her was rich life, endless sights, confusion and variety. The closing darkness was pierced with lights, windows glowed, people were hurrying home. It was all as she had left it. And she felt then that the city was but Joe multiplied, and that Joe was the city. Both were cosmopolitan, democratic, tragic, light-hearted, many-faceted. Both were careless and big and easy and roomy. Both had a great freedom about them. And what a freedom the city had!--nothing snowbound here, but invitation, shops open, cars gliding, the millions transported back and forth, everything open and inviting. She was glad for her neat back room--for gas-lights and running water--for the comfort and ease of life. She was glad even to sit in the crowded dining-room, and that night she was glad to lie abed and hear the city's heart pounding about her--that old noise of whistles on the river, that old thunder of the elevated train.