MOUNT VERNON had looked lonesome enough till now; but when we all landed it was like a picture. We wandered about; we broke up into little crowds, and the whole place was alive with happy people.
Mr. Iwakura and the rest of the Japanese walked slowly up the road. Dempster, E. E., and I went with them till we came to a tomb dug into the bank, with an iron fence before it.
Iwakura took off his stove-pipe hat and held it, just as if he had been at a funeral. The rest did the same, looking sad and touchingly solemn.
I dropped my parasol low, to hide the tears that came gushing up to my eyes, without warning. Cousin E. E. began to sob.
I turned away, longing to creep off into some dark corner, and have a good cry all by myself.
A good many of the people had gone up to the old homestead which is spread out low on the ground, and has a stoop with pillars running all along the front. From this stoop you can see the bend of the river and the blue of its water through the trees. There was a well near by that put me in mind of home; a lot of girls were drinking from the bucket, and chirruping together like birds around a spring.
I didn't like the sound just then, and went into the hall-way of the old homestead. There was nothing worth while in it but a great, big, heavy key, covered with rust, and big enough to knock a man down with.
"This," says a gentleman, a-standing close by me, "is the key of the Bastille."
I jumped back.
"What!" says I—"that old prison in Paris, where men were buried alive, without trial?"