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 accustomed to the amusing masquerade, Dick's mood grew more serious. Recollections of his father's discomfiture would intrude themselves upon him. He could not pass the spot, where he had last seen the old man standing in the dust, without a feeling of strong compunction, and he fairly hated himself when he thought of the rele which had been so unexpectedly forced upon him. He was pondering these things in a rather dismal frame of mind as he stood on the rear platform of his almost empty car, early in the evening of the same day. The exhilaration of novelty was past, and he found himself brought face to face with certain distasteful facts.

He knew his father's temper (and perhaps his own) too well to hope for a speedy reconciliation, and he was obliged to admit that the prospect of an indefinite term of service on the horse-railroad was not altogether pleasing to contemplate. In vain he told himself that it was independence, and that independence was all he had desired. The irrevocableness of the situation—and young people are ever ready with the word "irrevocable"—taught him that what he had taken for independence was nothing but a respectable servitude.

It was still broad daylight. He stood with his back planted against the end of the car, and his hands in his pockets, gazing gloomily at the receding city. The road was deserted; but in the distance he noticed a buggy approaching, as it