The joy their attitude bestowed upon
Selden was the thing he would feel gave the finishing touch to the hours
which he would recall to the end of his days as the "time of his life."
Yes, by gee! he was having "the time of his life."
Later he found himself feeling--as Miss Vanderpoel had felt--rather
as if the whole thing was a dream. This came upon him when, with Mount
Dunstan and Penzance, he walked through the park and the curiously
beautiful old gardens. The lovely, soundless quiet, broken into only by
bird notes, or his companions' voices, had an extraordinary effect on
him.
"It's so still you can hear it," he said once, stopping in a velvet,
moss-covered path. "Seems like you've got quiet shut up here, and you've
turned it on till the air's thick with it. Good Lord, think of little
old Broadway keeping it up, and the L whizzing and thundering along
every three minutes, just the same, while we're standing here! You can't
believe it."
It would have gone hard with him to describe to them the value of his
enjoyment. Again and again there came back to him the memory of the
grandmother who wore the black net cap trimmed with purple ribbons.
Apparently she had remained to the last almost contumaciously British.
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