THEIR SILVER WEDDING JOURNEY. 

By William Dean Howells

Part I. 

[NOTE: Several chapter heading numerals are out of order or missing inthis 1899 edition, however the text is all present in the three volumes. D. W. ]

I. 

"You need the rest, " said the Business End; "and your wife wants you togo, as well as your doctor. Besides, it's your Sabbatical year, and you, could send back a lot of stuff for the magazine. "

"Is that your notion of a Sabbatical year?" asked the editor. 

"No; I throw that out as a bait to your conscience. You needn't write aline while you're gone. I wish you wouldn't for your own sake; althoughevery number that hasn't got you in it is a back number for me. "

"That's very nice of you, Fulkerson, " said the editor. "I suppose yourealize that it's nine years since we took 'Every Other Week' fromDryfoos?"

"Well, that makes it all the more Sabbatical, " said Fulkerson. "The twoextra years that you've put in here, over and above the old styleSabbatical seven, are just so much more to your credit. It was your rightto go, two years ago, and now it's your duty. Couldn't you look at it inthat light?"

"I dare say Mrs. March could, " the editor assented. "I don't believe shecould be brought to regard it as a pleasure on any other terms. "

"Of course not, " said Fulkerson. "If you won't take a year, take threemonths, and call it a Sabbatical summer; but go, anyway. You can make uphalf a dozen numbers ahead, and Tom, here, knows your ways so well thatyou needn't think about 'Every Other Week' from the time you start tillthe time you try to bribe the customs inspector when you get back. I cantake a hack at the editing myself, if Tom's inspiration gives out, andput a little of my advertising fire into the thing. " He laid his hand onthe shoulder of the young fellow who stood smiling by, and pushed andshook him in the liking there was between them. "Now you go, March! Mrs. Fulkerson feels just as I do about it; we had our outing last year, andwe want Mrs. March and you to have yours. You let me go down and engageyour passage, and--"

"No, no!" the editor rebelled. "I'll think about it;" but as he turned tothe work he was so fond of and so weary of, he tried not to think of thequestion again, till he closed his desk in the afternoon, and started towalk home; the doctor had said he ought to walk, and he did so, though helonged to ride, and looked wistfully at the passing cars. 

He knew he was in a rut, as his wife often said; but if it was a rut, itwas a support too; it kept him from wobbling: She always talked as if theflowery fields of youth lay on either side of the dusty road he had beengoing so long, and he had but to step aside from it, to be among thebutterflies and buttercups again; he sometimes indulged this illusion, himself, in a certain ironical spirit which caressed while it mocked thenotion. They had a tacit agreement that their youth, if they were ever tofind it again, was to be looked for in Europe, where they met when theywere young, and they had never been quite without the hope of going backthere, some day, for a long sojourn. They had not seen the time when theycould do so; they were dreamers, but, as they recognized, even dreamingis not free from care; and in his dream March had been obliged to workpretty steadily, if not too intensely. He had been forced to forego thedistinctly literary ambition with which he had started in life because hehad their common living to make, and he could not make it by writinggraceful verse, or even graceful prose. He had been many years in asufficiently distasteful business, and he had lost any thought of leavingit when it left him, perhaps because his hold on it had always beenrather lax, and he had not been able to conceal that he disliked it. Atany rate, he was supplanted in his insurance agency at Boston by asubordinate in his office, and though he was at the same time offered aplace of nominal credit in the employ of the company, he was able todecline it in grace of a chance which united the charm of congenial workwith the solid advantage of a better salary than he had been getting forwork he hated. It was an incredible chance, but it was renderedappreciably real by the necessity it involved that they should leaveBoston, where they had lived all their married life, where Mrs. March aswell as their children was born, and where all their tender and familiarties were, and come to New York, where the literary enterprise whichformed his chance was to be founded. 

It was then a magazine of a new sort, which his business partner hadimagined in such leisure as the management of a newspaper syndicateafforded him, and had always thought of getting March to edit. Themagazine which is also a book has since been realized elsewhere on moreor less prosperous terms, but not for any long period, and 'Every OtherWeek' was apparently--the only periodical of the kind conditioned forsurvival. It was at first backed by unlimited capital, and it had theinstant favor of a popular mood, which has since changed, but which didnot change so soon that the magazine had not time to establish itself ina wide acceptance. It was now no longer a novelty, it was no longer inthe maiden blush of its first success, but it had entered upon its secondyouth with the reasonable hope of many years of prosperity before it. Infact it was a very comfortable living for all concerned, and the Marcheshad the conditions, almost dismayingly perfect, in which they had oftenpromised themselves to go and be young again in Europe, when theyrebelled at finding themselves elderly in America. Their daughter wasmarried, and so very much to her mother's mind that she did not worryabout her, even though she lived so far away as Chicago, still a wildfrontier town to her Boston imagination; and their son, as soon as heleft college, had taken hold on 'Every Other Week', under his father'sinstruction, with a zeal and intelligence which won him Fulkerson'spraise as a chip of the old block. These two liked each other, and workedinto each other's hands as cordially and aptly as Fulkerson and March hadever done. It amused the father to see his son offering Fulkerson thesame deference which the Business End paid to seniority in March himself;but in fact, Fulkerson's forehead was getting, as he said, moreintellectual every day; and the years were pushing them all alongtogether. 

Still, March had kept on in the old rut, and one day he fell down in it. He had a long sickness, and when he was well of it, he was so slow ingetting his grip of work again that he was sometimes deeply discouraged. His wife shared his depression, whether he showed or whether he hid it, and when the doctor advised his going abroad, she abetted the doctor withall the strength of a woman's hygienic intuitions. March himselfwillingly consented, at first; but as soon as he got strength for hiswork, he began to temporize and to demur. He said that he believed itwould do him just as much good to go to Saratoga, where they always hadsuch a good time, as to go to Carlsbad; and Mrs. March had been obligedseveral times to leave him to his own undoing; she always took him morevigorously in hand afterwards. 

II. 

When he got home from the 'Every Other Week' office, the afternoon ofthat talk with the Business End, he wanted to laugh with his wife atFulkerson's notion of a Sabbatical year. She did not think it was so verydroll; she even urged it seriously against him, as if she had now theauthority of Holy Writ for forcing him abroad; she found no relish ofabsurdity in the idea that it was his duty to take this rest which hadbeen his right before. 

He abandoned himself to a fancy which had been working to the surface ofhis thought. "We could call it our Silver Wedding Journey, and go roundto all the old places, and see them in the reflected light of the past. "

"Oh, we could!" she responded, passionately; and he had now the delicateresponsibility of persuading her that he was joking. 

He could think of nothing better than a return to Fulkerson's absurdity. "It would be our Silver Wedding Journey just as it would be my Sabbaticalyear--a good deal after date. But I suppose that would make it all themore silvery. "

She faltered in her elation. "Didn't you say a Sabbatical year yourself?"she demanded. 

"Fulkerson said it; but it was a figurative expression. "

"And I suppose the Silver Wedding Journey was a figurative expressiontoo!"

"It was a notion that tempted me; I thought you would enjoy it. Don't yousuppose I should be glad too, if we could go over, and find ourselvesjust as we were when we first met there?"

"No; I don't believe now that you care anything about it. "

"Well, it couldn't be done, anyway; so that doesn't matter. "

"It could be done, if you were a mind to think so. And it would be thegreatest inspiration to you. You are always longing for some chance to dooriginal work, to get away from your editing, but you've let the timeslip by without really trying to do anything; I don't call those littlestudies of yours in the magazine anything; and now you won't take thechance that's almost forcing itself upon you. You could write an originalbook of the nicest kind; mix up travel and fiction; get some love in. "

"Oh, that's the stalest kind of thing!"

"Well, but you could see it from a perfectly new point of view. You couldlook at it as a sort of dispassionate witness, and treat ithumorously--of course it is ridiculous--and do something entirely fresh. "

"It wouldn't work. It would be carrying water on both shoulders. Thefiction would kill the travel, the travel would kill the fiction; thelove and the humor wouldn't mingle any more than oil and vinegar. "

"Well, and what is better than a salad?"

"But this would be all salad-dressing, and nothing to put it on. " She wassilent, and he yielded to another fancy. "We might imagine coming uponour former selves over there, and travelling round with them--a weddingjourney 'en partie carree'. "

"Something like that. I call it a very poetical idea, " she said with asort of provisionality, as if distrusting another ambush. 

"It isn't so bad, " he admitted. "How young we were, in those days!"

"Too young to know what a good time we were having, " she said, relaxingher doubt for the retrospect. "I don't feel as if I really saw Europe, then; I was too inexperienced, too ignorant, too simple. I would like togo, just to make sure that I had been. " He was smiling again in the wayhe had when anything occurred to him that amused him, and she demanded, "What is it?"

"Nothing. I was wishing we could go in the consciousness of people whoactually hadn't been before--carry them all through Europe, and let themsee it in the old, simple-hearted American way. "

She shook her head. "You couldn't! They've all been!"

"All but about sixty or seventy millions, " said March. 

"Well, those are just the millions you don't know, and couldn't imagine. "

"I'm not so sure of that. "

"And even if you could imagine them, you couldn't make them interesting. All the interesting ones have been, anyway. "

"Some of the uninteresting ones too. I used, to meet some of that sortover there. I believe I would rather chance it for my pleasure with thosethat hadn't been. "

"Then why not do it? I know you could get something out of it. "

"It might be a good thing, " he mused, "to take a couple who had passedtheir whole life here in New York, too poor and too busy ever to go; andhad a perfect famine for Europe all the time. I could have them spendtheir Sunday afternoons going aboard the different boats, and looking uptheir accommodations. I could have them sail, in imagination, anddiscover an imaginary Europe, and give their grotesque misconceptions ofit from travels and novels against a background of purely Americanexperience. We needn't go abroad to manage that. I think it would berather nice. "

"I don't think it would be nice in the least, " said Mrs. March, "and ifyou don't want to talk seriously, I would rather not talk at all. "

"Well, then, let's talk about our Silver Wedding Journey. "

"I see. You merely want to tease and I am not in the humor for it. "

She said this in a great many different ways, and then she was reallysilent. He perceived that she was hurt; and he tried to win her back togood-humor. He asked her if she would not like to go over to Hoboken andlook at one of the Hanseatic League steamers, some day; and she refused. When he sent the next day and got a permit to see the boat; she consentedto go. 

III. 

He was one of those men who live from the inside outward; he often took ahint for his actions from his fancies; and now because he had fanciedsome people going to look at steamers on Sundays, he chose the nextSunday himself for their visit to the Hanseatic boat at Hoboken. To besure it was a leisure day with him, but he might have taken the afternoonof any other day, for that matter, and it was really that invisiblethread of association which drew him. 

The Colmannia had been in long enough to have made her toilet for theoutward voyage, and was looking her best. She was tipped and edged withshining brass, without and within, and was red-carpeted and white-paintedas only a ship knows how to be. A little uniformed steward ran before thevisitors, and showed them through the dim white corridors into typicalstate-rooms on the different decks; and then let them verify their firstimpression of the grandeur of the dining-saloon, and the luxury of theladies' parlor and music-room. March made his wife observe that thetables and sofas and easy-chairs, which seemed so carelessly scatteredabout, were all suggestively screwed fast to the floor against roughweather; and he amused himself with the heavy German browns and greensand coppers in the decorations, which he said must have been studied incolor from sausage, beer, and spinach, to the effect of those largemarch-panes in the roof. She laughed with him at the tastelessness of therace which they were destined to marvel at more and more; but she madehim own that the stewardesses whom they saw were charmingly likeserving-maids in the 'Fliegende Blatter'; when they went ashore shechallenged his silence for some assent to her own conclusion that theColmannia was perfect. 

"She has only one fault, " he assented. "She's a ship. "

"Yes, " said his wife, "and I shall want to look at the Norumbia before Idecide. "

Then he saw that it was only a question which steamer they should take, and not whether they should take any. He explained, at first gently andafterwards savagely, that their visit to the Colmannia was quite enoughfor him, and that the vessel was not built that he would be willing tocross the Atlantic in. 

When a man has gone so far as that he has committed himself to theopposite course in almost so many words; and March was neither surprisednor abashed when he discovered himself, before they reached home, offering his wife many reasons why they should go to Europe. She answeredto all, No, he had made her realize the horror of it so much that she wasglad to give it up. She gave it up, with the best feeling; all that shewould ask of him was that he should never mention Europe to her again. She could imagine how much he disliked to go, if such a ship as theColmannia did not make him want to go. 

At the bottom of his heart he knew that he had not used her very well. Hehad kindled her fancy with those notions of a Sabbatical year and aSilver Wedding Journey, and when she was willing to renounce both he hadpersisted in taking her to see the ship, only to tell her afterwards thathe would not go abroad on any account. It was by a psychological jugglewhich some men will understand that he allowed himself the next day toget the sailings of the Norumbia from the steamship office; he also got aplan of the ship showing the most available staterooms, so that theymight be able to choose between her and the Colmannia from all the facts. 

IV. 

From this time their decision to go was none the less explicit because soperfectly tacit. 

They began to amass maps and guides. She got a Baedeker for Austria andhe got a Bradshaw for the continent, which was never of the least usethere, but was for the present a mine of unavailable information. He gota phrase-book, too, and tried to rub up his German. He used to readGerman, when he was a boy, with a young enthusiasm for its romanticpoetry, and now, for the sake of Schiller and Uhland and Heine, he heldimaginary conversations with a barber, a bootmaker, and a banker, andtried to taste the joy which he had not known in the language of thosepoets for a whole generation. He perceived, of course, that unless thebarber, the bootmaker, and the banker answered him in terms which theauthor of the phrase-book directed them to use, he should not get on withthem beyond his first question; but he did not allow this to spoil hispleasure in it. In fact, it was with a tender emotion that he realizedhow little the world, which had changed in everything else so greatly, had changed in its ideal of a phrase-book. 

Mrs. March postponed the study of her Baedeker to the time and place forit; and addressed herself to the immediate business of ascertaining therespective merits of the Colmannia and Norumbia. She carried on herresearches solely among persons of her own sex; its experiences werealone of that positive character which brings conviction, and she valuedthem equally at first or second hand. She heard of ladies who would notcross in any boat but the Colmannia, and who waited for months to get aroom on her; she talked with ladies who said that nothing would inducethem to cross in her. There were ladies who said she had twice the motionthat the Norumbia had, and the vibration from her twin screws wasfrightful; it always was, on those twin-screw boats, and it did notaffect their testimony with Mrs. March that the Norumbia was a twin-screwboat too. It was repeated to her in the third or fourth degree ofhear-say that the discipline on the Colmannia was as perfect as that onthe Cunarders; ladies whose friends had tried every line assured her thatthe table of the Norumbia was almost as good as the table of the Frenchboats. To the best of the belief of lady witnesses still living who hadfriends on board, the Colmannia had once got aground, and the Norumbiahad once had her bridge carried off by a tidal wave; or it might be theColmannia; they promised to ask and let her know. Their lightest wordavailed with her against the most solemn assurances of their husbands, fathers, or brothers, who might be all very well on land, but innavigation were not to be trusted; they would say anything from areckless and culpable optimism. She obliged March all the same to askamong them, but she recognized their guilty insincerity when he came homesaying that one man had told him you could have played croquet on thedeck of the Colmannia the whole way over when he crossed, and anotherthat he never saw the racks on in three passages he had made in theNorumbia. 

The weight of evidence was, he thought, in favor of the Norumbia, butwhen they went another Sunday to Hoboken, and saw the ship, Mrs. Marchliked her so much less than the Colmannia that she could hardly wait forMonday to come; she felt sure all the good rooms on the Colmannia wouldbe gone before they could engage one. 

From a consensus of the nerves of all the ladies left in town so late inthe season, she knew that the only place on any steamer where your roomought to be was probably just where they could not get it. If you wenttoo high, you felt the rolling terribly, and people tramping up and downon the promenade under your window kept you awake the whole night; if youwent too low, you felt the engine thump, thump, thump in your head thewhole way over. If you went too far forward, you got the pitching; if youwent aft, on the kitchen side, you got the smell of the cooking. The onlyplace, really, was just back of the dining-saloon on the south side ofthe ship; it was smooth there, and it was quiet, and you had the sun inyour window all the way over. He asked her if he must take their roomthere or nowhere, and she answered that he must do his best, but that shewould not be satisfied with any other place. 

In his despair he went down to the steamer office, and took a room whichone of the clerks said was the best. When he got home, it appeared fromreference to the ship's plan that it was the very room his wife hadwanted from the beginning, and she praised him as if he had used a wisdombeyond his sex in getting it. 

He was in the enjoyment of his unmerited honor when a belated lady camewith her husband for an evening call, before going into the country. Atsight of the plans of steamers on the Marches' table, she expressed thegreatest wonder and delight that they were going to Europe. They hadsupposed everybody knew it, by this time, but she said she had not hearda word of it; and she went on with some felicitations which March foundrather unduly filial. In getting a little past the prime of life he didnot like to be used with too great consideration of his years, and he didnot think that he and his wife were so old that they need be treated asif they were going on a golden wedding journey, and heaped with all sortsof impertinent prophecies of their enjoying it so much and being so muchthe better for the little outing! Under his breath, he confounded thislady for her impudence; but he schooled himself to let her rejoice attheir going on a Hanseatic boat, because the Germans were always socareful of you. She made her husband agree with her, and it came out thathe had crossed several times on both the Colmannia and the Norumbia. Hevolunteered to say that the Colmannia, was a capital sea-boat; she didnot have her nose under water all the time; she was steady as a rock; andthe captain and the kitchen were simply out of sight; some people didcall her unlucky. 

"Unlucky?" Mrs. March echoed, faintly. "Why do they call her unlucky?"

"Oh, I don't know. People will say anything about any boat. You know shebroke her shaft, once, and once she got caught in the ice. "

Mrs. March joined him in deriding the superstition of people, and sheparted gayly with this over-good young couple. As soon as they were gone, March knew that she would say: "You must change that ticket, my dear. Wewill go in the Norumbia. "

"Suppose I can't get as good a room on the Norumbia?"

"Then we must stay. "

In the morning after a night so bad that it was worse than no night atall, she said she would go to the steamship office with him and questionthem up about the Colmannia. The people there had never heard she wascalled an unlucky boat; they knew of nothing disastrous in her history. They were so frank and so full in their denials, and so kindly patient ofMrs. March's anxieties, that he saw every word was carrying conviction oftheir insincerity to her. At the end she asked what rooms were left onthe Norumbia, and the clerk whom they had fallen to looked through hispassenger list with a shaking head. He was afraid there was nothing theywould like. 

"But we would take anything, " she entreated, and March smiled to think ofhis innocence in supposing for a moment that she had ever dreamed of notgoing. 

"We merely want the best, " he put in. "One flight up, no noise or dust, with sun in all the windows, and a place for fire on rainy days. "

They must be used to a good deal of American joking which they do notunderstand, in the foreign steamship offices. The clerk turnedunsmilingly to one of his superiors and asked him some question in Germanwhich March could not catch, perhaps because it formed no part of aconversation with a barber, a bootmaker or a banker. A brief dramafollowed, and then the clerk pointed to a room on the plan of theNorumbia and said it had just been given up, and they could have it ifthey decided to take it at once. 

They looked, and it was in the very place of their room on the Colmannia;it was within one of being the same number. It was so providential, if itwas providential at all, that they were both humbly silent a moment; evenMrs. March was silent. In this supreme moment she would not prompt herhusband by a word, a glance, and it was from his own free will that hesaid, "We will take it. "

He thought it was his free will, but perhaps one's will is never free;and this may have been an instance of pure determinism from all theevents before it. No event that followed affected it, though the dayafter they had taken their passage on the Norumbia he heard that she hadonce been in the worst sort of storm in the month of August. He feltobliged to impart the fact to his wife, but she said that it provednothing for or against the ship, and confounded him more by her reasonthan by all her previous unreason. Reason is what a man is never preparedfor in women; perhaps because he finds it so seldom in men. 

V. 

During nearly the whole month that now passed before the date of sailingit seemed to March that in some familiar aspects New York had never beenso interesting. He had not easily reconciled himself to the place afterhis many years of Boston; but he had got used to the ugly grandeur, tothe noise and the rush, and he had divined more and more the carelessgood-nature and friendly indifference of the vast, sprawling, ungainlymetropolis. There were happy moments when he felt a poetry unintentionaland unconscious in it, and he thought there was no point more favorablefor the sense of this than Stuyvesant Square, where they had a flat. Their windows looked down into its tree-tops, and across them to thetruncated towers of St. George's, and to the plain red-brick, white-trimmed front of the Friends' Meeting House; he came and wentbetween his dwelling and his office through the two places that form thesquare, and after dinner his wife and he had a habit of finding seats byone of the fountains in Livingston Place, among the fathers and mothersof the hybrid East Side children swarming there at play. The elders readtheir English or Italian or German or Yiddish journals, or gossiped, ormerely sat still and stared away the day's fatigue; while the little onesraced in and out among them, crying and laughing, quarrelling andkissing. Sometimes a mother darted forward and caught her child from thebrink of the basin; another taught hers to walk, holding it tightly upbehind by its short skirts; another publicly nursed her baby to sleep. 

While they still dreamed, but never thought, of going to Europe, theMarches often said how European all this was; if these women had broughttheir knitting or sewing it would have been quite European; but as soonas they had decided to go, it all began to seem poignantly American. Inlike manner, before the conditions of their exile changed, and they stillpined for the Old World, they contrived a very agreeable illusion of itby dining now and then at an Austrian restaurant in Union Square; butlater when they began to be homesick for the American scenes they had notyet left, they had a keener retrospective joy in the strictly New Yorksunset they were bowed out into. 

The sunsets were uncommonly characteristic that May in Union Square. Theywere the color of the red stripes in the American flag, and when theywere seen through the delirious architecture of the Broadway side, ordown the perspective of the cross-streets, where the elevated trainssilhouetted themselves against their pink, they imparted a feeling ofpervasive Americanism in which all impression of alien savors andcivilities was lost. One evening a fire flamed up in Hoboken, and burnedfor hours against the west, in the lurid crimson tones of a conflagrationas memorably and appealingly native as the colors of the sunset. 

The weather for nearly the whole month was of a mood familiar enough inour early summer, and it was this which gave the sunsets their vitreouspink. A thrilling coolness followed a first blaze of heat, and in thelong respite the thoughts almost went back to winter flannels. But atlast a hot wave was telegraphed from the West, and the week before theNorumbia sailed was an anguish of burning days and breathless nights, which fused all regrets and reluctances in the hope of escape, and madethe exiles of two continents long for the sea, with no care for eithershore. 

VI. 

Their steamer was to sail early; they were up at dawn because they hadscarcely lain down, and March crept out into the square for a last breathof its morning air before breakfast. He was now eager to be gone; he hadbroken with habit, and he wished to put all traces of the past out ofsight. But this was curiously like all other early mornings in hisconsciousness, and he could not alienate himself from the wontedenvironment. He stood talking on every-day terms of idle speculation withthe familiar policeman, about a stray parrot in the top of one of thetrees, where it screamed and clawed at the dead branch to which it clung. Then he went carelessly indoors again as if he were secure of reading thereporter's story of it in that next day's paper which he should not see. 

The sense of an inseverable continuity persisted through the breakfast, which was like other breakfasts in the place they would be leaving insummer shrouds just as they always left it at the end of June. Theillusion was even heightened by the fact that their son was to be in theapartment all summer, and it would not be so much shut up as usual. Theheavy trunks had been sent to the ship by express the afternoon before, and they had only themselves and their stateroom baggage to transport toHoboken; they came down to a carriage sent from a neighboringlivery-stable, and exchanged good-mornings with a driver they knew byname. 

March had often fancied it a chief advantage of living in New York thatyou could drive to the steamer and start for Europe as if you werestarting for Albany; he was in the enjoyment of this advantage now, butsomehow it was not the consolation he had expected. He knew, of course, that if they had been coming from Boston, for instance, to sail in theNorumbia, they would probably have gone on board the night before, andsweltered through its heat among the strange smells and noises of thedock and wharf, instead of breakfasting at their own table, and smoothlybowling down the asphalt on to the ferryboat, and so to the very foot ofthe gangway at the ship's side, all in the cool of the early morning. Butthough he had now the cool of the early morning on these conditions, there was by no means enough of it. 

The sun was already burning the life out of the air, with the threat ofanother day of the terrible heat that had prevailed for a week past; andthat last breakfast at home had not been gay, though it had been lively, in a fashion, through Mrs. March's efforts to convince her son that shedid not want him to come and see them off. Of, her daughter's coming allthe way from Chicago there was no question, and she reasoned that if hedid not come to say good-by on board it would be the same as if they werenot going. 

"Don't you want to go?" March asked with an obscure resentment. 

"I don't want to seem to go, " she said, with the calm of those who havelogic on their side. 

As she drove away with her husband she was not so sure of hersatisfaction in the feint she had arranged, though when she saw theghastly partings of people on board, she was glad she had not allowed herson to come. She kept saying this to herself, and when they climbed tothe ship from the wharf, and found themselves in the crowd that chokedthe saloons and promenades and passages and stairways and landings, shesaid it more than once to her husband. 

She heard weary elders pattering empty politenesses of farewell withfriends who had come to see them off, as they stood withdrawn in suchrefuges as the ship's architecture afforded, or submitted to be pushedand twirled about by the surging throng when they got in its way. Shepitied these in their affliction, which she perceived that they could notlighten or shorten, but she had no patience with the young girls, whobroke into shrieks of nervous laughter at the coming of certain youngmen, and kept laughing and beckoning till they made the young men seethem; and then stretched their hands to them and stood screaming andshouting to them across the intervening heads and shoulders. Some girls, of those whom no one had come to bid good-by, made themselves merry, orat least noisy, by rushing off to the dining-room and looking at thecards on the bouquets heaping the tables, to find whether any one hadsent them flowers. Others whom young men had brought bunches of violetshid their noses in them, and dropped their fans and handkerchiefs andcard-cases, and thanked the young men for picking them up. Others, hadgot places in the music-room, and sat there with open boxes oflong-stemmed roses in their laps, and talked up into the faces of themen, with becoming lifts and slants of their eyes and chins. In the midstof the turmoil children struggled against people's feet and knees, andbewildered mothers flew at the ship's officers and battered them withquestions alien to their respective functions as they amiably stifledabout in their thick uniforms. 

Sailors, slung over the ship's side on swinging seats, were placidlysmearing it with paint at that last moment; the bulwarks were thickly setwith the heads and arms of passengers who were making signs to friends onshore, or calling messages to them that lost themselves in louder noisesmidway. Some of the women in the steerage were crying; they were probablynot going to Europe for pleasure like the first-cabin passengers, or evenfor their health; on the wharf below March saw the face of one young girltwisted with weeping, and he wished he had not seen it. He turned fromit, and looked into the eyes of his son, who was laughing at hisshoulder. He said that he had to come down with a good-by letter from hissister, which he made an excuse for following them; but he had alwaysmeant to see them off, he owned. The letter had just come with a specialdelivery stamp, and it warned them that she had sent another good-byletter with some flowers on board. Mrs. March scolded at them both, butwith tears in her eyes, and in the renewed stress of parting which hethought he had put from him, March went on taking note, as with aliensenses, of the scene before him, while they all talked on together, andrepeated the nothings they had said already. 

A rank odor of beet-root sugar rose from the far-branching sheds wheresome freight steamers of the line lay, and seemed to mingle chemicallywith the noise which came up from the wharf next to the Norumbia. Themass of spectators deepened and dimmed away into the shadow of the roofs, and along their front came files of carriages and trucks and carts, anddischarged the arriving passengers and their baggage, and were lost inthe crowd, which they penetrated like slow currents, becoming clogged andarrested from time to time, and then beginning to move again. 

The passengers incessantly mounted by the canvas-draped galleriesleading, fore and aft, into the ship. Bareheaded, blue-jacketed, brass-buttoned stewards dodged skillfully in and out among them withtheir hand-bags, holdalls, hat-boxes, and state-room trunks, and ranbefore them into the different depths and heights where they hid theseburdens, and then ran back for more. Some of the passengers followed themand made sure that their things were put in the right places; most ofthem remained wedged among the earlier comers, or pushed aimlessly in andout of the doors of the promenades. 

The baggage for the hold continually rose in huge blocks from the wharf, with a loud clucking of the tackle, and sank into the open maw of theship, momently gathering herself for her long race seaward, with harshhissings and rattlings and gurglings. There was no apparent reason why itshould all or any of it end, but there came a moment when there began tobe warnings that were almost threats of the end. The ship's whistlesounded, as if marking a certain interval; and Mrs. March humblyentreated, sternly commanded, her son to go ashore, or else be carried toEurope. They disputed whether that was the last signal or not; she wassure it was, and she appealed to March, who was moved against his reason. He affected to talk calmly with his son, and gave him some last chargesabout 'Every Other Week'. 

Some people now interrupted their leave-taking; but the arrivingpassengers only arrived more rapidly at the gang-ways; the bulks ofbaggage swung more swiftly into the air. A bell rang, and there rosewomen's cries, "Oh, that is the shore-bell!" and men's protests, "It isonly the first bell!" More and more began to descend the gangways, foreand aft, and soon outnumbered those who were coming aboard. 

March tried not to be nervous about his son's lingering; he was ashamedof his anxiety; but he said in a low voice, "Better be off, Tom. "

His mother now said she did not care if Tom were really carried toEurope; and at last he said, Well, he guessed he must go ashore, as ifthere had been no question of that before; and then she clung to him andwould not let him go; but she acquired merit with herself at last bypushing him into the gangway with her own hands: he nodded and waved hishat from its foot, and mixed with the crowd. 

Presently there was hardly any one coming aboard, and the sailors beganto undo the lashings of the gangways from the ship's side; files of menon the wharf laid hold of their rails; the stewards guarding theirapproach looked up for the signal to come aboard; and in vivid pantomimeforbade some belated leavetakers to ascend. These stood aside, exchangingbows and grins with the friends whom they could not reach; they all triedto make one another hear some last words. The moment came when the saloongangway was detached; then it was pulled ashore, and the section of thebulwarks opening to it was locked, not to be unlocked on this side of theworld. An indefinable impulse communicated itself to the steamer: whileit still seemed motionless it moved. The thick spread of faces on thewharf, which had looked at times like some sort of strange flowers in alevel field, broke into a universal tremor, and the air above them wasfilled with hats and handkerchiefs, as if with the flight of birds risingfrom the field. 

The Marches tried to make out their son's face; they believed that theydid; but they decided that they had not seen him, and his mother saidthat she was glad; it would only have made it harder to bear, though shewas glad he had come over to say good-by it had seemed so unnatural thathe should not, when everybody else was saying good-by. 

On the wharf color was now taking the place of form; the scene ceased tohave the effect of an instantaneous photograph; it was like animpressionistic study. As the ship swung free of the shed and got intothe stream, the shore lost reality. Up to a certain moment, all was stillNew York, all was even Hoboken; then amidst the grotesque and monstrousshows of the architecture on either shore March felt himself at sea andon the way to Europe. 

The fact was accented by the trouble people were already making with thedeck-steward about their steamer chairs, which they all wanted put in thebest places, and March, with a certain heart-ache, was involuntarilyverifying the instant in which he ceased to be of his native shores, while still in full sight of them, when he suddenly reverted to them, andas it were landed on them again in an incident that held him breathless. A man, bareheaded, and with his arms flung wildly abroad, came flyingdown the promenade from the steerage. "Capitan! Capitan! There is awoman!" he shouted in nondescript English. "She must go hout! She must gohout!" Some vital fact imparted itself to the ship's command and seemedto penetrate to the ship's heart; she stopped, as if with a sort ofmajestic relenting. A tug panted to her side, and lifted a ladder to it;the bareheaded man, and a woman gripping a baby in her arms, sprawledsafely down its rungs to the deck of the tug, and the steamer movedseaward again. 

"What is it? Oh, what is it?" his wife demanded of March's share of theircommon ignorance. A young fellow passing stopped, as if arrested by thetragic note in her voice, and explained that the woman had left threelittle children locked up in her tenement while she came to bid somefriends on board good-by. 

He passed on, and Mrs. March said, "What a charming face he had!" evenbefore she began to wreak upon that wretched mother the overwroughtsympathy which makes good women desire the punishment of people who haveescaped danger. She would not hear any excuse for her. "Her childrenoughtn't to have been out of her mind for an instant. "

"Don't you want to send back a line to ours by the pilot?" March asked. 

She started from him. "Oh, was I really beginning to forget them?"

In the saloon where people were scattered about writing pilot's lettersshe made him join her in an impassioned epistle of farewell, which oncemore left none of the nothings unsaid that they had many timesreiterated. She would not let him put the stamp on, for fear it would notstick, and she had an agonizing moment of doubt whether it ought not tobe a German stamp; she was not pacified till the steward in charge of themail decided. 

"I shouldn't have forgiven myself, " March said, "if we hadn't let Tomknow that twenty minutes after he left us we were still alive and well. "

"It's to Bella, too, " she reasoned. 

He found her making their state-room look homelike with their familiarthings when he came with their daughter's steamer letter and the flowersand fruit she had sent. She said, Very well, they would all keep, andwent on with her unpacking. He asked her if she did not think these homethings made it rather ghastly, and she said if he kept on in that way sheshould certainly go back on the pilot-boat. He perceived that her nerveswere spent. He had resisted the impulse to an ill-timed joke about thelife-preservers under their berths when the sound of the breakfast-horn, wavering first in the distance, found its way nearer and clearer downtheir corridor. 

VII. 

In one of the many visits to the steamship office which his wife'sanxieties obliged him to make, March had discussed the question of seatsin the dining-saloon. At first he had his ambition for the captain'stable, but they convinced him more easily than he afterwards convincedMrs. March that the captain's table had become a superstition of thepast, and conferred no special honor. It proved in the event that thecaptain of the Norumbia had the good feeling to dine in a lower saloonamong the passengers who paid least for their rooms. But while theMarches were still in their ignorance of this, they decided to get whatadventure they could out of letting the head steward put them where heliked, and they came in to breakfast with a careless curiosity to seewhat he had done for them. 

There seemed scarcely a vacant place in the huge saloon; through the ovalopenings in the centre they looked down into the lower saloon and up intothe music-room, as thickly thronged with breakfasters. The tables werebrightened with the bouquets and the floral designs of ships, anchors, harps, and doves sent to the lady passengers, and at one time the Marchesthought they were going to be put before a steam-yacht realized to thelast detail in blue and white violets. The ports of the saloon were open, and showed the level sea; the ship rode with no motion except the tremorfrom her screws. The sound of talking and laughing rose with the clatterof knives and forks and the clash of crockery; the homely smell of thecoffee and steak and fish mixed with the spice of the roses andcarnations; the stewards ran hither and thither, and a young foolish joyof travel welled up in the elderly hearts of the pair. When the headsteward turned out the swivel-chairs where they were to sit they bothmade an inclination toward the people already at table, as if it had beena company at some far-forgotten table d'hote in the later sixties. Thehead steward seemed to understand as well as speak English, but thetable-stewards had only an effect of English, which they eked out with"Bleace!" for all occasions of inquiry, apology, or reassurance, as theequivalent of their native "Bitte!" Otherwise there was no reason tosuppose that they did not speak German, which was the language of a goodhalf of the passengers. The stewards looked English, however, inconformity to what seems the ideal of every kind of foreign seafaringpeople, and that went a good way toward making them intelligible. 

March, to whom his wife mainly left their obeisance, made it so tentativethat if it should meet no response he could feel that it had been nothingmore than a forward stoop, such as was natural in sitting down. He neednot really have taken this precaution; those whose eyes he caught more orless nodded in return. 

A nice-looking boy of thirteen or fourteen, who had the place on the leftof the lady in the sofa seat under the port, bowed with almostmagisterial gravity, and made the lady on the sofa smile, as if she werehis mother and understood him. March decided that she had been some timea widow; and he easily divined that the young couple on her right hadbeen so little time husband and wife that they would rather not have itknown. Next them was a young lady whom he did not at first think sogood-looking as she proved later to be, though she had at once a prettynose, with a slight upward slant at the point, long eyes under fallenlashes, a straight forehead, not too high, and a mouth which perhaps theexigencies of breakfasting did not allow all its characteristic charm. She had what Mrs. March thought interesting hair, of a dull black, roughly rolled away from her forehead and temples in a fashion notparticularly becoming to her, and she had the air of not looking so wellas she might if she had chosen. The elderly man on her right, it was easyto see, was her father; they had a family likeness, though his fair hair, now ashen with age, was so different from hers. He wore his beard cut inthe fashion of the Second Empire, with a Louis Napoleonic mustache, imperial, and chin tuft; his neat head was cropt close; and there wassomething Gallic in its effect and something remotely military: he hadblue eyes, really less severe than he meant, though be frowned a gooddeal, and managed them with glances of a staccato quickness, as ifchallenging a potential disagreement with his opinions. 

The gentleman on his right, who sat at the head of the table, was of thehumorous, subironical American expression, and a smile at the corner ofhis kindly mouth, under an iron-gray full beard cut short, at oncequestioned and tolerated the new-comers as he glanced at them. Heresponded to March's bow almost as decidedly as the nice boy, whosemother he confronted at the other end of the table, and with his comelybulk formed an interesting contrast to her vivid slightness. She wasbrilliantly dark, behind the gleam of the gold-rimmed glasses perched onher pretty nose. 

If the talk had been general before the Marches came, it did not at oncerenew itself in that form. Nothing was said while they were having theirfirst struggle with the table-stewards, who repeated the order as if toshow how fully they had misunderstood it. The gentleman at the head ofthe table intervened at last, and then, "I'm obliged to you, " March said, "for your German. I left mine in a phrase-book in my other coat pocket. "

"Oh, I wasn't speaking German, " said the other. "It was merely their kindof English. "

The company were in the excitement of a novel situation which disposespeople to acquaintance, and this exchange of small pleasantries madeevery one laugh, except the father and daughter; but they had the effectof being tacitly amused. 

The mother of the nice boy said to Mrs. March, "You may not get what youordered, but it will be good. "

"Even if you don't know what it is!" said the young bride, and thenblushed, as if she had been too bold. 

Mrs. March liked the blush and the young bride for it, and she asked, "Have you ever been on one of these German boats before? They seem verycomfortable. "

"Oh, dear, no! we've never been on any boat before. " She made a littlepetted mouth of deprecation, and added, simple-heartedly, "My husband wasgoing out on business, and he thought he might as well take me along. "

The husband seemed to feel himself brought in by this, and said he didnot see why they should not make it a pleasure-trip, too. They putthemselves in a position to be patronized by their deference, and in thepauses of his talk with the gentleman at the head of the table, Marchheard his wife abusing their inexperience to be unsparingly instructiveabout European travel. He wondered whether she would be afraid to ownthat it was nearly thirty years since she had crossed the ocean; thoughthat might seem recent to people who had never crossed at all. 

They listened with respect as she boasted in what an anguish of wisdomshe had decided between the Colmannia and the Norumbia. The wife said shedid not know there was such a difference in steamers, but when Mrs. Marchperfervidly assured her that there was all the difference in the world, she submitted and said she supposed she ought to be thankful that they, had hit upon the right one. They had telegraphed for berths and takenwhat was given them; their room seemed to be very nice. 

"Oh, " said Mrs. March, and her husband knew that she was saying it toreconcile them to the inevitable, "all the rooms on the Norumbia arenice. The only difference is that if they are on the south side you havethe sun. "

"I'm not sure which is the south side, " said the bride. "We seem to havebeen going west ever since we started, and I feel as if we should reachhome in the morning if we had a good night. Is the ocean always so smoothas this?"

"Oh, dear, no!" said Mrs. March. "It's never so smooth as this, " and shebegan to be outrageously authoritative about the ocean weather. She endedby declaring that the June passages were always good, and that if theship kept a southerly course they would have no fogs and no icebergs. Shelooked round, and caught her husband's eye. "What is it? Have I beenbragging? Well, you understand, " she added to the bride, "I've only beenover once, a great while ago, and I don't really know anything about it, "and they laughed together. "But I talked so much with people after wedecided to go, that I feel as if I had been a hundred times. "

"I know, " said the other lady, with caressing intelligence. "That is justthe way with--" She stopped, and looked at the young man whom the headsteward was bringing up to take the vacant place next to March. He cameforward, stuffing his cap into the pocket of his blue serge sack, andsmiled down on the company with such happiness in his gay eyes that Marchwondered what chance at this late day could have given any human creaturehis content so absolute, and what calamity could be lurking round thecorner to take it out of him. The new-comer looked at March as if he knewhim, and March saw at a second glance that he was the young fellow whohad told him about the mother put off after the start. He asked himwhether there was any change in the weather yet outside, and he answeredeagerly, as if the chance to put his happiness into the mere sound ofwords were a favor done him, that their ship had just spoken one of thebig Hanseatic mailboats, and she had signalled back that she had met ice;so that they would probably keep a southerly course, and not have itcooler till they were off the Banks. 

The mother of the boy said, "I thought we must be off the Banks when Icame out of my room, but it was only the electric fan at the foot of thestairs. "

"That was what I thought, " said Mrs. March. "I almost sent my husbandback for my shawl!" Both the ladies laughed and liked each other fortheir common experience. 

The gentleman at the head of the table said, "They ought to have fansgoing there by that pillar, or else close the ports. They only let inheat. "

They easily conformed to the American convention of jocosity in theirtalk; it perhaps no more represents the individual mood than theconvention of dulness among other people; but it seemed to make the youngman feel at home. 

"Why, do you think it's uncomfortably warm?" he asked, from what Marchperceived to be a meteorology of his own. He laughed and added, "It ispretty summerlike, " as if he had not thought of it before. He talked ofthe big mail-boat, and said he would like to cross on such a boat asthat, and then he glanced at the possible advantage of having your ownsteam-yacht like the one which he said they had just passed, so near thatyou could see what a good time the people were having on board. He beganto speak to the Marches; his talk spread to the young couple across thetable; it visited the mother on the sofa in a remark which she mightignore without apparent rejection, and without really avoiding the boy, it glanced off toward the father and daughter, from whom it fell, to restwith the gentleman at the head of the table. 

It was not that the father and daughter had slighted his overture, if itwas so much as that, but that they were tacitly preoccupied, or were ofsome philosophy concerning their fellow-breakfasters which did not sufferthem, for the present, at least, to share in the common friendliness. This is an attitude sometimes produced in people by a sense of just, oreven unjust, superiority; sometimes by serious trouble; sometimes bytransient annoyance. The cause was not so deep-seated but Mrs. March, before she rose from her place, believed that she had detected a slant ofthe young lady's eyes, from under her lashes, toward the young man; andshe leaped to a conclusion concerning them in a matter where all logicalsteps are impertinent. She did not announce her arrival at this pointtill the young man had overtaken her before she got out of the saloon, and presented the handkerchief she had dropped under the table. 

He went away with her thanks, and then she said to her husband, "Well, he's perfectly charming, and I don't wonder she's taken with him; thatkind of cold girl would be, though I'm not sure that she is cold. She'sinteresting, and you could see that he thought so, the more he looked ather; I could see him looking at her from the very first instant; hecouldn't keep his eyes off her; she piqued his curiosity, and made himwonder about her. "

"Now, look here, Isabel! This won't do. I can stand a good deal, but Isat between you and that young fellow, and you couldn't tell whether hewas looking at that girl or not. "

"I could! I could tell by the expression of her face. "

"Oh, well! If it's gone as far as that with you, I give it up. When areyou going to have them married?"

"Nonsense! I want you to find out who all those people are. How are yougoing to do it?"

"Perhaps the passenger list will say, " he suggested. 

VIII. 

The list did not say of itself, but with the help of the head steward'sdiagram it said that the gentleman at the head of the table was Mr. R. M. Kenby; the father and the daughter were Mr. E. B. Triscoe and MissTriscoe; the bridal pair were Mr. And Mrs. Leffers; the mother and herson were Mrs. Adding and Mr. Roswell Adding; the young man who came inlast was Mr. L. J. Burnamy. March carried the list, with these namescarefully checked and rearranged on a neat plan of the table, to his wifein her steamer chair, and left her to make out the history and thecharacter of the people from it. In this sort of conjecture longexperience had taught him his futility, and he strolled up and down andlooked at the life about him with no wish to penetrate it deeply. 

Long Island was now a low yellow line on the left. Some fishing-boatsflickered off the shore; they met a few sail, and left more behind; butalready, and so near one of the greatest ports of the world, the spacioussolitude of the ocean was beginning. There was no swell; the sea layquite flat, with a fine mesh of wrinkles on its surface, and the sunflamed down upon it from a sky without a cloud. With the light fair wind, there was no resistance in the sultry air, the thin, dun smoke from thesmoke-stack fell about the decks like a stifling veil. 

The promenades, were as uncomfortably crowded as the sidewalk ofFourteenth Street on a summer's day, and showed much the social averageof a New York shopping thoroughfare. Distinction is something that doesnot always reveal itself at first sight on land, and at sea it is stillmore retrusive. A certain democracy of looks and clothes was the mostnotable thing to March in the apathetic groups and detached figures. Hiscriticism disabled the saloon passengers of even so much personal appealas he imagined in some of the second-cabin passengers whom he saw acrosstheir barrier; they had at least the pathos of their exclusion, and hecould wonder if they felt it or envied him. At Hoboken he had seencertain people coming on board who looked like swells; but they had noweither retired from the crowd, or they had already conformed to theprevailing type. It was very well as a type; he was of it himself; but hewished that beauty as well as distinction had not been so lost in it. 

In fact, he no longer saw so much beauty anywhere as he once did. Itmight be that he saw life more truly than when he was young, and that hisglasses were better than his eyes had been; but there were analogies thatforbade his thinking so, and he sometimes had his misgivings that thetrouble was with his glasses. He made what he could of a pretty girl whohad the air of not meaning to lose a moment from flirtation, and wasluring her fellow-passengers from under her sailor hat. She had alreadyattached one of them; and she was hooking out for more. She kept movingherself from the waist up, as if she worked there on a pivot, showing nowthis side and now that side of her face, and visiting the admirer she hadsecured with a smile as from the lamp of a revolving light as she turned. 

While he was dwelling upon this folly, with a sense of impersonalpleasure in it as complete through his years as if he were already adisembodied spirit, the pulse of the engines suddenly ceased, and hejoined the general rush to the rail, with a fantastic expectation ofseeing another distracted mother put off; but it was only the pilotleaving the ship. He was climbing down the ladder which hung over theboat, rising and sinking on the sea below, while the two men in her heldher from the ship's side with their oars; in the offing lay the whitesteam-yacht which now replaces the picturesque pilot-sloop of othertimes. The Norumbia's screws turned again under half a head of steam; thepilot dropped from the last rung of the ladder into the boat, and caughtthe bundle of letters tossed after him. Then his men let go the line thatwas towing their craft, and the incident of the steamer's departure wasfinally closed. It had been dramatically heightened perhaps by her finalimpatience to be off at some added risks to the pilot and his men, butnot painfully so, and March smiled to think how men whose lives are allof dangerous chances seem always to take as many of them as they can. 

He heard a girl's fresh voice saying at his shoulder, "Well, now we areoff; and I suppose you're glad, papa!"

"I'm glad we're not taking the pilot on, at least, " answered the elderlyman whom the girl had spoken to; and March turned to see the father anddaughter whose reticence at the breakfast table had interested him. Hewondered that he had left her out of the account in estimating the beautyof the ship's passengers: he saw now that she was not only extremelypretty, but as she moved away she was very graceful; she even haddistinction. He had fancied a tone of tolerance, and at the same time ofreproach in her voice, when she spoke, and a tone of defiance and notvery successful denial in her father's; and he went back with theseimpressions to his wife, whom he thought he ought to tell why the shiphad stopped. 

She had not noticed the ship's stopping, in her study of the passengerlist, and she did not care for the pilot's leaving; but she seemed tothink his having overheard those words of the father and daughter anevent of prime importance. With a woman's willingness to adapt the meansto the end she suggested that he should follow them up and try tooverhear something more; she only partially realized the infamy of hersuggestion when he laughed in scornful refusal. 

"Of course I don't want you to eavesdrop, but I do want you to find outabout them. And about Mr. Burnamy, too. I can wait, about the others, ormanage for myself, but these are driving me to distraction. Now, willyou?"

He said he would do anything he could with honor, and at one of theearliest turns he made on the other side of the ship he was smilinglyhalted by Mr. Burnamy, who asked to be excused, and then asked if he werenot Mr. March of 'Every Other Week'; he had seen the name on thepassenger list, and felt sure it must be the editor's. He seemed sotrustfully to expect March to remember his own name as that of a writerfrom whom he had accepted a short poem, yet unprinted, that the editorfeigned to do so until he really did dimly recall it. He even recalledthe short poem, and some civil words he said about it caused Burnamy tooverrun in confidences that at once touched and amused him. 

IX. 

Burnamy, it seemed, had taken passage on the Norumbia because he found, when he arrived in New York the day before, that she was the first boatout. His train was so much behind time that when he reached the office ofthe Hanseatic League it was nominally shut, but he pushed in bysufferance of the janitor, and found a berth, which had just been givenup, in one of the saloon-deck rooms. It was that or nothing; and he feltrich enough to pay for it himself if the Bird of Prey, who had cabled himto come out to Carlsbad as his secretary, would not stand the differencebetween the price and that of the lower-deck six-in-a-room berth which hewould have taken if he had been allowed a choice. 

With the three hundred dollars he had got for his book, less the price ofhis passage, changed into German bank-notes and gold pieces, and safelybuttoned in the breast pocket of his waistcoat, he felt as safe frompillage as from poverty when he came out from buying his ticket; hecovertly pressed his arm against his breast from time to time, for thejoy of feeling his money there and not from any fear of finding it gone. He wanted to sing, he wanted to dance; he could not believe it was he, ashe rode up the lonely length of Broadway in the cable-car, between thewild, irregular walls of the canyon which the cable-cars have all tothemselves at the end of a summer afternoon. 

He went and dined, and he thought he dined well, at a Spanish-Americanrestaurant, for fifty cents, with a half-bottle of California claretincluded. When he came back to Broadway he was aware that it wasstiflingly hot in the pinkish twilight, but he took a cable-car again inlack of other pastime, and the motion served the purpose of a breeze, which he made the most of by keeping his hat off. It did not reallymatter to him whether it was hot or cool; he was imparadised in weatherwhich had nothing to do with the temperature. Partly because he was bornto such weather, in the gayety of soul which amused some people with him, and partly because the world was behaving as he had always expected, hewas opulently content with the present moment. But he thought verytolerantly of the future, and he confirmed himself in the decision he hadalready made, to stick to Chicago when he came back to America. New Yorkwas very well, and he had no sentiment about Chicago; but he had got afoothold there; he had done better with an Eastern publisher, hebelieved, by hailing from the West, and he did not believe it would hurthim with the Eastern public to keep on hailing from the West. 

He was glad of a chance to see Europe, but he did not mean to come homeso dazzled as to see nothing else against the American sky. He fancied, for he really knew nothing, that it was the light of Europe, not itsglare that he wanted, and he wanted it chiefly on his material, so as tosee it more and more objectively. It was his power of detachment fromthis that had enabled him to do his sketches in the paper with such charmas to lure a cash proposition from a publisher when he put them togetherfor a book, but he believed that his business faculty had much to do withhis success; and he was as proud of that as of the book itself. Perhapshe was not so very proud of the book; he was at least not vain of it; hecould, detach himself from his art as well as his material. 

Like all literary temperaments he was of a certain hardness, in spite ofthe susceptibilities that could be used to give coloring to his work. Heknew this well enough, but he believed that there were depths ofunprofessional tenderness in his nature. He was good to his mother, andhe sent her money, and wrote to her in the little Indiana town where hehad left her when he came to Chicago. After he got that invitation fromthe Bird of Prey, he explored his heart for some affection that he hadnot felt for him before, and he found a wish that his employer should notknow it was he who had invented that nickname for him. He promptly avowedthis in the newspaper office which formed one of the eyries of the Birdof Prey, and made the fellows promise not to give him away. He failed tomove their imagination when he brought up as a reason for softeningtoward him that he was from Burnamy's own part of Indiana, and was abenefactor of Tippecanoe University, from which Burnamy was graduated. But they, relished the cynicism of his attempt; and they were glad of hisgood luck, which he was getting square and not rhomboid, as most peopleseem to get their luck. They liked him, and some of them liked him forhis clean young life as well as for his cleverness. His life was known tobe as clean as a girl's, and he looked like a girl with his sweet eyes, though he had rather more chin than most girls. 

The conductor came to reverse his seat, and Burnamy told him he guessedhe would ride back with him as far as the cars to the Hoboken Ferry, ifthe conductor would put him off at the right place. It was nearly nineo'clock, and he thought he might as well be going over to the ship, wherehe had decided to pass the night. After he found her, and went on board, he was glad he had not gone sooner. A queasy odor of drainage stole upfrom the waters of the dock, and mixed with the rank, gross sweetness ofthe bags of beet-root sugar from the freight-steamers; there was a comingand going of carts and trucks on the wharf, and on the ship a rattling ofchains and a clucking of pulleys, with sudden outbreaks and then suddensilences of trampling sea-boots. Burnamy looked into the dining-saloonand the music-room, with the notion of trying for some naps there; thenhe went to his state-room. His room-mate, whoever he was to be, had notcome; and he kicked off his shoes and threw off his coat and tumbled intohis berth. 

He meant to rest awhile, and then get up and spend the night in receivingimpressions. He could not think of any one who had done the facts of theeve of sailing on an Atlantic liner. He thought he would use the materialfirst in a letter to the paper and afterwards in a poem; but he foundhimself unable to grasp the notion of its essential relation to thechoice between chicken croquettes and sweetbreads as entrees of therestaurant dinner where he had been offered neither; he knew that he hadbegun to dream, and that he must get up. He was just going to get up, when he woke to a sense of freshness in the air, penetrating from the newday outside. He looked at his watch and found it was quarter past six; heglanced round the state-room and saw that he had passed the night alonein it. Then he splashed himself hastily at the basin next his berth, andjumped into his clothes, and went on deck, anxious to lose no feature oremotion of the ship's departure. 

When she was fairly off he returned to his room to change the thick coathe had put on at the instigation of the early morning air. His room-matewas still absent, but he was now represented by his state-room baggage, and Burnamy tried to infer him from it. He perceived a social quality inhis dress-coat case, capacious gladstone, hat-box, rug, umbrella, andsole-leather steamer trunk which he could not attribute to his ownequipment. The things were not so new as his; they had an effect ofpolite experience, with a foreign registry and customs label on them hereand there. They had been chosen with both taste and knowledge, andBurnamy would have said that they were certainly English things, if ithad not been for the initials U. S. A. Which followed the name of E. B. Triscoe on the end of the steamer trunk showing itself under the foot ofthe lower berth. 

The lower berth had fallen to Burnamy through the default of thepassenger whose ticket he had got at the last hour; the clerk in thesteamer office had been careful to impress him with this advantage, andhe now imagined a trespass on his property. But he reassured himself by aglance at his ticket, and went out to watch the ship's passage down thestream and through the Narrows. After breakfast he came to his roomagain, to see what could be done from his valise to make him look betterin the eyes of a girl whom he had seen across the table; of course heprofessed a much more general purpose. He blamed himself for not havinggot at least a pair of the white tennis-shoes which so many of thepassengers were wearing; his russet shoes had turned shabby on his feet;but there was a pair of enamelled leather boots in his bag which hethought might do. 

His room was in the group of cabins on the upper deck; he had alreadymissed his way to it once by mistaking the corridor which it opened into;and he was not sure that he was not blundering again when he peered downthe narrow passage where he supposed it was. A lady was standing at anopen state-room door, resting her hands against the jambs and leaningforward with her head within and talking to some one there. Before hecould draw back and try another corridor he heard her say: "Perhaps he'ssome young man, and wouldn't care. "

Burnamy could not make out the answer that came from within. The ladyspoke again in a tone of reluctant assent, "No, I don't suppose youcould; but if he understood, perhaps he would offer. "

She drew her head out of the room, stepping back a pace, and lingering amoment at the threshold. She looked round over her shoulder anddiscovered Burnamy, where he stood hesitating at the head of the passage. She ebbed before him, and then flowed round him in her instant escape;with some murmured incoherencies about speaking to her father, shevanished in a corridor on the other side of the ship, while he stoodstaring into the doorway of his room. 

He had seen that she was the young lady for whom he had come to put onhis enamelled shoes, and he saw that the person within was the elderlygentleman who had sat next her at breakfast. He begged his pardon, as heentered, and said he hoped he should not disturb him. "I'm afraid I leftmy things all over the place, when I got up this morning. "

The other entreated him not to mention it and went on taking from hishand-bag a variety of toilet appliances which the sight of made Burnamyvow to keep his own simple combs and brushes shut in his valise all theway over. "You slept on board, then, " he suggested, arresting himselfwith a pair of low shoes in his hand; he decided to put them in a certainpocket of his steamer bag. 

"Oh, yes, " Burnamy laughed, nervously: "I came near oversleeping, andgetting off to sea without knowing it; and I rushed out to save myself, and so--"

He began to gather up his belongings while he followed the movements ofMr. Triscoe with a wistful eye. He would have liked to offer his lowerberth to this senior of his, when he saw him arranging to take possessionof the upper; but he did not quite know how to manage it. He noticed thatas the other moved about he limped slightly, unless it were rather aweary easing of his person from one limb to the other. He stooped to pullhis trunk out from under the berth, and Burnamy sprang to help him. 

"Let me get that out for you!" He caught it up and put it on the sofaunder the port. "Is that where you want it?"

"Why, yes, " the other assented. "You're very good, " and as he took outhis key to unlock the trunk he relented a little farther to theintimacies of the situation. "Have you arranged with the bath-stewardyet? It's such a full boat. "

"No, I haven't, " said Burnamy, as if he had tried and failed; till thenhe had not known that there was a bath-steward. "Shall I get him foryou?"

"No; no. Our bedroom-steward will send him, I dare say, thank you. "

Mr. Triscoe had got his trunk open, and Burnamy had no longer an excusefor lingering. In his defeat concerning the bath-steward, as he felt itto be, he had not the courage, now, to offer the lower berth. He wentaway, forgetting to change his shoes; but he came back, and as soon as hegot the enamelled shoes on, and shut the shabby russet pair in his bag, he said, abruptly: "Mr. Triscoe, I wish you'd take the lower berth. I gotit at the eleventh hour by some fellow's giving it up, and it isn't as ifI'd bargained for it a month ago. "

The elder man gave him one of his staccato glances in which Burnamyfancied suspicion and even resentment. But he said, after the moment ofreflection which he gave himself, "Why, thank you, if you don't mind, really. "

"Not at all!" cried the young man. "I should like the upper berth better. We'll, have the steward change the sheets. "

"Oh, I'll see that he does that, " said Mr. Triscoe. "I couldn't allow youto take any trouble about it. " He now looked as if he wished Burnamywould go, and leave him to his domestic arrangements. 

X. 

In telling about himself Burnamy touched only upon the points which hebelieved would take his listener's intelligent fancy, and he stopped solong before he had tired him that March said he would like to introducehim to his wife. He saw in the agreeable young fellow an image of his ownyouth, with some differences which, he was willing to own, were to theyoung fellow's advantage. But they were both from the middle West; intheir native accent and their local tradition they were the same; theywere the same in their aspirations; they were of one blood in theirliterary impulse to externate their thoughts and emotions. 

Burnamy answered, with a glance at his enamelled shoes, that he would bedelighted, and when her husband brought him up to her, Mrs. March saidshe was always glad to meet the contributors to the magazine, and askedhim whether he knew Mr. Kendricks, who was her favorite. Without givinghim time to reply to a question that seemed to depress him, she said thatshe had a son who must be nearly his own age, and whom his father hadleft in charge of 'Every Other Week' for the few months they were to begone; that they had a daughter married and living in Chicago. She madehim sit down by her in March's chair, and before he left them March heardhim magnanimously asking whether Mr. Kendricks was going to do somethingmore for the magazine soon. He sauntered away and did not know howquickly Burnamy left this question to say, with the laugh and blush whichbecame him in her eyes:

"Mrs. March, there is something I should like to tell you about, if youwill let me. "

"Why, certainly, Mr. Burnamy, " she began, but she saw that he did notwish her to continue. 

"Because, " he went on, "it's a little matter that I shouldn't like to gowrong in. "

He told her of his having overheard what Miss Triscoe had said to herfather, and his belief that she was talking about the lower berth. Hesaid he would have wished to offer it, of course, but now he was afraidthey might think he had overheard them and felt obliged to do it. 

"I see, " said Mrs. March, and she added, thoughtfully, "She looks likerather a proud girl. "

"Yes, " the young fellow sighed. 

"She is very charming, " she continued, thoughtfully, but not sojudicially. 

"Well, " Burnamy owned, "that is certainly one of the complications, " andthey laughed together. 

She stopped herself after saying, "I see what you mean, " and suggested, "I think I should be guided by circumstances. It needn't be done at once, I suppose. "

"Well, " Burnamy began, and then he broke out, with a laugh ofembarrassment, "I've done it already. "

"Oh! Then it wasn't my advice, exactly, that you wanted. "

"No!"

"And how did he take it?"

"He said he should be glad to make the exchange if I really didn't mind. "Burnamy had risen restlessly, and she did not ask him to stay. She merelysaid:

"Oh, well, I'm glad it turned out so nicely. "

"I'm so glad you think it was the thing to do. " He managed to laughagain, but he could not hide from her that he was not feeling altogethersatisfied. "Would you like me to send Mr. March, if I see him?" he asked, as if he did not know on what other terms to get away. 

"Do, please!" she entreated, and it seemed to her that he had hardly lefther when her husband came up. "Why, where in the world did he find you sosoon?"

"Did you send him for me? I was just hanging round for him to go. " Marchsank into the chair at her side. "Well, is he going to marry her?"

"Oh, you may laugh! But there is something very exciting!" She told himwhat had happened, and of her belief that Burnamy's handsome behavior hadsomehow not been met in kind. 

March gave himself the pleasure of an immense laugh. "It seems to me thatthis Mr. Burnamy of yours wanted a little more gratitude than he wasentitled to. Why shouldn't he have offered him the lower berth? And whyshouldn't the old gentleman have taken it just as he did? Did you wanthim to make a counteroffer of his daughter's hand? If he does, I hope Mr. Burnamy won't come for your advice till after he's accepted her. "

"He wasn't very candid. I hoped you would speak about that. Don't youthink it was rather natural, though?"

"For him, very likely. But I think you would call it sinuous in some oneyou hadn't taken a fancy to. "

"No, no. I wish to be just. I don't see how he could have come straightat it. And he did own up at last. " She asked him what Burnamy had donefor the magazine, and he could remember nothing but that one small poem, yet unprinted; he was rather vague about its value, but said it hadtemperament. 

"He has temperament, too, " she commented, and she had made him tell hereverything he knew, or could be forced to imagine about Burnamy, beforeshe let the talk turn to other things. 

The life of the promenade had already settled into seafaring form; thesteamer chairs were full, and people were reading or dozing in them withan effect of long habit. Those who would be walking up and down had beguntheir walks; some had begun going in and out of the smoking-room; ladieswho were easily affected by the motion were lying down in the music-room. Groups of both sexes were standing at intervals along the rail, and thepromenaders were obliged to double on a briefer course or work slowlyround them. Shuffleboard parties at one point and ring-toss parties atanother were forming among the young people. It was as lively and it wasas dull as it would be two thousand miles at sea. It was not the leastcooler, yet; but if you sat still you did not suffer. 

In the prompt monotony the time was already passing swiftly. Thedeck-steward seemed hardly to have been round with tea and bouillon, andhe had not yet gathered up all the empty cups, when the horn for lunchsounded. It was the youngest of the table-stewards who gave the summonsto meals; and whenever the pretty boy appeared with his bugle, funnypassengers gathered round him to make him laugh, and stop him fromwinding it. His part of the joke was to fulfill his duty with gravity, and only to give way to a smile of triumph as he walked off. 

XI. 

At lunch, in the faded excitement of their first meeting, the people atthe Marches' table did not renew the premature intimacy of theirbreakfast talk. Mrs. March went to lie down in her berth afterwards, andMarch went on deck without her. He began to walk to and from the barrierbetween the first and second cabin promenades; lingering near it, andmusing pensively, for some of the people beyond it looked as intelligentand as socially acceptable, even to their clothes, as their pecuniarybetters of the saloon. 

There were two women, a mother and daughter, whom he fancied to beteachers, by their looks, going out for a little rest, or perhaps for alittle further study to fit them more perfectly for their work. Theygazed wistfully across at him whenever he came up to the barrier; and hefeigned a conversation with them and tried to convince them that thestamp of inferiority which their poverty put upon them was just, or ifnot just, then inevitable. He argued with them that the sort of barrierwhich here prevented their being friends with him, if they wished it, raninvisibly through society everywhere but he felt ashamed before theirkind, patient, intelligent faces, and found himself wishing to excuse thefact he was defending. Was it any worse, he asked them, than their notbeing invited to the entertainments of people in upper Fifth Avenue? Hemade them own that if they were let across that barrier the whole secondcabin would have a logical right to follow; and they were silenced. Butthey continued to gape at him with their sincere, gentle eyes whenever hereturned to the barrier in his walk, till he could bear it no longer, andstrolled off toward the steerage. 

There was more reason why the passengers there should be penned into alittle space of their own in the sort of pit made by the narrowing deckat the bow. They seemed to be all foreigners, and if any had made theirfortunes in our country they were hiding their prosperity in the returnto their own. They could hardly have come to us more shabby and squalidthan they were going away; but he thought their average less apatheticthan that of the saloon passengers, as he leaned over the rail and lookeddown at them. Some one had brought out an electric battery, and thelumpish boys and slattern girls were shouting and laughing as theywrithed with the current. A young mother seated flat on the deck, withher bare feet stuck out, inattentively nursed her babe, while she laughedand shouted with the rest; a man with his head tied in a shawl walkedabout the pen and smiled grotesquely with the well side of histoothache-swollen face. The owner of the battery carried it away, and agroup of little children, with blue eyes and yellow hair, gathered in thespace he had left, and looked up at a passenger near March who was eatingsome plums and cherries which he had brought from the luncheon table. Hebegan to throw the fruit down to them, and the children scrambled for it. 

An elderly man, with a thin, grave, aquiline face, said, "I shouldn'twant a child of mine down there. "

"No, " March responded, "it isn't quite what one would choose for one'sown. It's astonishing, though, how we reconcile ourselves to it in thecase of others. "

"I suppose it's something we'll have to get used to on the other side, "suggested the stranger. 

"Well, " answered March, "you have some opportunities to get used to it onthis side, if you happen to live in New York, " and he went on to speak ofthe raggedness which often penetrated the frontier of comfort where helived in Stuyvesant Square, and which seemed as glad of alms in food ormoney as this poverty of the steerage. 

The other listened restively like a man whose ideals are disturbed. "Idon't believe I should like to live in New York, much, " he said, andMarch fancied that he wished to be asked where he did live. It appearedthat he lived in Ohio, and he named his town; he did not brag of it, buthe said it suited him. He added that he had never expected to go toEurope, but that he had begun to run down lately, and his doctor thoughthe had better go out and try Carlsbad. 

March said, to invite his further confidence, that this was exactly hisown case. The Ohio man met the overture from a common invalidism as if itdetracted from his own distinction; and he turned to speak of thedifficulty, he had in arranging his affairs for leaving home. His heartopened a little with the word, and he said how comfortable he and hiswife were in their house, and how much they both hated to shut it up. When March offered him his card, he said he had none of his own with him, but that his name was Eltwin. He betrayed a simple wish to have Marchrealize the local importance he had left behind him; and it was not hardto comply; March saw a Grand Army button in the lapel of his coat, and heknew that he was in the presence of a veteran. 

He tried to guess his rank; in telling his wife about him, when he wentdown to find her just before dinner, but he ended with a certain sense ofaffliction. "There are too many elderly invalids on this ship. I knockagainst people of my own age everywhere. Why aren't your youthful loversmore in evidence, my dear? I don't believe they are lovers, and I beginto doubt if they're young even. "

"It wasn't very satisfactory at lunch, certainly, " she owned. "But I knowit will be different at dinner. " She was putting herself together after anap that had made up for the lost sleep of the night before. "I want youto look very nice, dear. Shall you dress for dinner?" she asked herhusband's image in the state-room glass which she was preoccupying. 

"I shall dress in my pea-jacket and sea-boots, " it answered. 

"I have heard that they always dress for dinner on the big Cunard andWhite Star boats, when it's good weather, " she went on, placidly. "Ishouldn't want those people to think you were not up in the convenances. "

They both knew that she meant the reticent father and daughter, and Marchflung out, "I shouldn't want them to think you weren't. There's such athing as overdoing. "

She attacked him at another point. "What has annoyed you? What else haveyou been doing?"

"Nothing. I've been reading most of the afternoon. "

"The Maiden Knight?"

This was the book which nearly everybody had brought on board. It wasjust out, and had caught an instant favor, which swelled later to a tidalwave. It depicted a heroic girl in every trying circumstance of mediaevallife, and gratified the perennial passion of both sexes for historicalromance, while it flattered woman's instinct of superiority by thecelebration of her unintermitted triumphs, ending in a preposterous andwholly superfluous self-sacrifice. 

March laughed for pleasure in her guess, and she pursued, "I suppose youdidn't waste time looking if anybody had brought the last copy of 'EveryOther Week'?"

"Yes, I did; and I found the one you had left in your steamer chair--foradvertising purposes, probably. "

"Mr. Burnamy has another, " she said. "I saw it sticking out of his pocketthis morning. "

"Oh, yes. He told me he had got it on the train from Chicago to see if ithad his poem in it. He's an ingenuous soul--in some ways. "

"Well, that is the very reason why you ought to find out whether the menare going to dress, and let him know. He would never think of ithimself. "

"Neither would I, " said her husband. 

"Very well, if you wish to spoil his chance at the outset, " she sighed. 

She did not quite know whether to be glad or not that the men were all insacks and cutaways at dinner; it saved her, from shame for her husbandand Mr. Burnamy; but it put her in the wrong. Every one talked; even thefather and daughter talked with each other, and at one moment Mrs. Marchcould not be quite sure that the daughter had not looked at her when shespoke. She could not be mistaken in the remark which the father addressedto Burnamy, though it led to nothing. 

XII. 

The dinner was uncommonly good, as the first dinner out is apt to be; andit went gayly on from soup to fruit, which was of the American abundanceand variety, and as yet not of the veteran freshness imparted by theice-closet. Everybody was eating it, when by a common consciousness theywere aware of alien witnesses. They looked up as by a single impulse, andsaw at the port the gaunt face of a steerage passenger staring down upontheir luxury; he held on his arm a child that shared his regard with yethungrier eyes. A boy's nose showed itself as if tiptoed to the height ofthe man's elbow; a young girl peered over his other arm. 

The passengers glanced at one another; the two table-stewards, with theirnapkins in their hands, smiled vaguely, and made some indefinitemovements. 

The bachelor at the head of the table broke the spell. "I'm glad itdidn't begin with the Little Neck clams!"

"Probably they only let those people come for the dessert, " Marchsuggested. 

The widow now followed the direction of the other eyes; and looked upover her shoulder; she gave a little cry, and shrank down. The youngbride made her petted mouth, in appeal to the company; her husband lookedsevere, as if he were going to do something, but refrained, not to make ascene. The reticent father threw one of his staccato glances at the port, and Mrs. March was sure that she saw the daughter steal a look atBurnamy. 

The young fellow laughed. "I don't suppose there's anything to be doneabout it, unless we pass out a plate. "

Mr. Kenby shook his head. "It wouldn't do. We might send for the captain. Or the chief steward. "

The faces at the port vanished. At other ports profiles passed andrepassed, as if the steerage passengers had their promenade under them, but they paused no more. 

The Marches went up to their steamer chairs, and from her exasperatednerves Mrs. March denounced the arrangement of the ship which had madesuch a cruel thing possible. 

"Oh, " he mocked, "they had probably had a good substantial meal of theirown, and the scene of our banquet was of the quality of a picture, apurely aesthetic treat. But supposing it wasn't, we're doing somethinglike it every day and every moment of our lives. The Norumbia is a pieceof the whole world's civilization set afloat, and passing from shore toshore with unchanged classes, and conditions. A ship's merely a smallstage, where we're brought to close quarters with the daily drama ofhumanity. "

"Well, then, " she protested, "I don't like being brought to closequarters with the daily drama of humanity, as you call it. And I don'tbelieve that the large English ships are built so that the steeragepassengers can stare in at the saloon windows while one is eating; andI'm sorry we came on the Norumbia. "

"Ah, you think the Norumbia doesn't hide anything, " he began, and he wasgoing to speak of the men in the furnace pits of the steamer, how theyfed the fires in a welding heat, and as if they had perished in it creptout on the forecastle like blanched phantasms of toil; but she interposedin time. 

"If there's anything worse, for pity's sake don't tell me, " sheentreated, and he forebore. 

He sat thinking how once the world had not seemed to have even death init, and then how as he had grown older death had come into it more andmore, and suffering was lurking everywhere, and could hardly be kept outof sight. He wondered if that young Burnamy now saw the world as he usedto see it, a place for making verse and making love, and full of beautyof all kinds waiting to be fitted with phrases. He had lived a happylife; Burnamy would be lucky if he should live one half as happy; and yetif he could show him his whole happy life, just as it had truly been, must not the young man shrink from such a picture of his future?

"Say something, " said his wife. "What are you thinking about?"

"Oh, Burnamy, " he answered, honestly enough. 

"I was thinking about the children, " she said. "I am glad Bella didn'ttry to come from Chicago to see us off; it would have been too silly; sheis getting to be very sensible. I hope Tom won't take the covers off thefurniture when he has the fellows in to see him. "

"Well, I want him to get all the comfort he can out of the place, even ifthe moths eat up every stick of furniture. "

"Yes, so do I. And of course you're wishing that you were there withhim!" March laughed guiltily. "Well, perhaps it was a crazy thing for usto start off alone for Europe, at our age. "

"Nothing of the kind, " he retorted in the necessity he perceived forstaying her drooping spirits. "I wouldn't be anywhere else on anyaccount. Isn't it perfectly delicious? It puts me in mind of that nighton the Lake Ontario boat, when we were starting for Montreal. There wasthe same sort of red sunset, and the air wasn't a bit softer than this. "

He spoke of a night on their wedding-journey when they were sill newenough from Europe to be comparing everything at home with things there. 

"Well, perhaps we shall get into the spirit of it again, " she said, andthey talked a long time of the past. 

All the mechanical noises were muffled in the dull air, and the wash ofthe ship's course through the waveless sea made itself pleasantly heard. In the offing a steamer homeward bound swam smoothly by, so close thather lights outlined her to the eye; she sent up some signal rockets thatsoared against the purple heaven in green and crimson, and spoke to theNorumbia in the mysterious mute phrases of ships that meet in the dark. 

Mrs. March wondered what had become of Burnamy; the promenades were muchfreer now than they had been since the ship sailed; when she rose to gobelow, she caught sight of Burnamy walking the deck transversely withsome lady. She clutched her husband's arm and stayed him in richconjecture. 

"Do you suppose he can have got her to walking with him already?"

They waited till Burnamy and his companion came in sight again. She wastilting forward, and turning from the waist, now to him and now from him. 

"No; it's that pivotal girl, " said March; and his wife said, "Well, I'mglad he won't be put down by them. "

In the music-room sat the people she meant, and at the instant she passedon down the stairs, the daughter was saying to the father, "I don't seewhy you didn't tell me sooner, papa. "

"It was such an unimportant matter that I didn't think to mention it. Heoffered it, and I took it; that was all. What difference could it havemade to you?"

"None. But one doesn't like to do any one an injustice. "

"I didn't know you were thinking anything about it. "

"No, of course not. "

XIII. 

The voyage of the Norumbia was one of those which passengers say theyhave never seen anything like, though for the first two or three days outneither the doctor nor the deck-steward could be got, to prophesy whenthe ship would be in. There was only a day or two when it could really becalled rough, and the sea-sickness was confined to those who seemedwilful sufferers; they lay on the cushioned benching around thestairs-landing, and subsisted on biscuit and beef tea without qualifyingthe monotonous well-being of the other passengers, who passed withoutnoticing them. 

The second morning there was rain, and the air freshened, but the leadensea lay level as before. The sun shone in the afternoon; with the sunsetthe fog came thick and white; the ship lowed dismally through the night;from the dense folds of the mist answering noises called back to her. Just before dark two men in a dory shouted up to her close under herbows, and then melted out of sight; when the dark fell the lights offishing-schooners were seen, and their bells pealed; once loud cries froma vessel near at hand made themselves heard. Some people in thedining-saloon sang hymns; the smoking-room was dense with cigar fumes, and the card-players dealt their hands in an atmosphere emulous of thefog without. 

The Norumbia was off the Banks, and the second day of fog was cold as ificebergs were haunting the opaque pallor around her. In the ranks ofsteamer chairs people lay like mummies in their dense wrappings; in themusic-room the little children of travel discussed the different lines ofsteamers on which they had crossed, and babes of five and seven disputedabout the motion on the Cunarders and White Stars; their nurses tried invain to still them in behalf of older passengers trying to write lettersthere. 

By the next morning the ship had run out of the fog; and people who couldkeep their feet said they were glad of the greater motion which theyfound beyond the Banks. They now talked of the heat of the first daysout, and how much they had suffered; some who had passed the night onboard before sailing tried to impart a sense of their misery in trying tosleep. 

A day or two later a storm struck the ship, and the sailors stretchedcanvas along the weather promenade and put up a sheathing of boardsacross the bow end to keep off the rain. Yet a day or two more and thesea had fallen again and there was dancing on the widest space of the leepromenade. 

The little events of the sea outside the steamer offered themselves intheir poor variety. Once a ship in the offing, with all its square sailsset, lifted them like three white towers from the deep. On the rim of theocean the length of some westward liner blocked itself out against thehorizon, and swiftly trailed its smoke out of sight. A few trampsteamers, lounging and lunging through the trough of the sea, wereovertaken and left behind; an old brigantine passed so close that herrusty iron sides showed plain, and one could discern the faces of thepeople on board. 

The steamer was oftenest without the sign of any life beyond her. One daya small bird beat the air with its little wings, under the roof of thepromenade, and then flittered from sight over the surface, of the waste;a school of porpoises, stiff and wooden in their rise, plunged clumsilyfrom wave to wave. The deep itself had sometimes the unreality, theartificiality of the canvas sea of the theatre. Commonly it was livid andcold in color; but there was a morning when it was delicately misted, andwhere the mist left it clear, it was blue and exquisitely iridescentunder the pale sun; the wrinkled waves were finely pitted by the fallingspray. These were rare moments; mostly, when it was not like paintedcanvas, is was hard like black rock, with surfaces of smooth cleavage. Where it met the sky it lay flat and motionless, or in the rougherweather carved itself along the horizon in successions of surges. 

If the sun rose clear, it was overcast in a few hours; then the cloudsbroke and let a little sunshine through, to close again before the dimevening thickened over the waters. Sometimes the moon looked through theragged curtain of vapors; one night it seemed to shine till morning, andshook a path of quicksilver from the horizon to the ship. Through everychange, after she had left the fog behind, the steamer drove on with thepulse of her engines (that stopped no more than a man's heart stops) in acourse which had nothing to mark it but the spread of the furrows fromher sides, and the wake that foamed from her stern to the western vergeof the sea. 

The life of the ship, like the life of the sea, was a sodden monotony, with certain events which were part of the monotony. In the morning thelittle steward's bugle called the passengers from their dreams, and halfan hour later called them to their breakfast, after such as chose hadbeen served with coffee by their bedroom-stewards. Then they went ondeck, where they read, or dozed in their chairs, or walked up and down, or stood in the way of those who were walking; or played shuffleboard andring-toss; or smoked, and drank whiskey and aerated waters over theircards and papers in the smoking-room; or wrote letters in the saloon orthe music-room. At eleven o'clock they spoiled their appetites for lunchwith tea or bouillon to the music of a band of second-cabin stewards; atone, a single blast of the bugle called them to lunch, where they gluttedthemselves to the torpor from which they afterwards drowsed in theirberths or chairs. They did the same things in the afternoon that they haddone in the forenoon; and at four o'clock the deck-stewards came roundwith their cups and saucers, and their plates of sandwiches, again to themusic of the band. There were two bugle-calls for dinner, and afterdinner some went early to bed, and some sat up late and had grills andtoast. At twelve the lights were put out in the saloons and thesmoking-rooms. 

There were various smells which stored themselves up in the consciousnessto remain lastingly relative to certain moments and places: a whiff ofwhiskey and tobacco that exhaled from the door of the smoking-room; theodor of oil and steam rising from the open skylights over theengine-room; the scent of stale bread about the doors of thedining-saloon. 

The life was like the life at a sea-side hotel, only more monotonous. Thewalking was limited; the talk was the tentative talk of people aware thatthere was no refuge if they got tired of one another. The flirtingitself, such as there was of it, must be carried on in the glare of thepervasive publicity; it must be crude and bold, or not be at all. 

There seemed to be very little of it. There were not many young people onboard of saloon quality, and these were mostly girls. The young men weremainly of the smoking-room sort; they seldom risked themselves among thesteamer chairs. It was gayer in the second cabin, and gayer yet in thesteerage, where robuster emotions were operated by the accordion. Thepassengers there danced to its music; they sang to it and laughed to itunabashed under the eyes of the first-cabin witnesses clustered along therail above the pit where they took their rude pleasures. 

With March it came to his spending many hours of each long, swift day inhis berth with a book under the convenient electric light. He was safethere from the acquaintances which constantly formed themselves only tofall into disintegration, and cling to him afterwards as inorganicparticles of weather-guessing, and smoking-room gossip about the ship'srun. 

In the earliest hours of the voyage he thought that he saw some faces ofthe great world, the world of wealth and fashion; but these afterwardvanished, and left him to wonder where they hid themselves. He did notmeet them even in going to and from his meals; he could only imagine themserved in those palatial state-rooms whose interiors the stewards now andthen rather obtruded upon the public. There were people whom heencountered in the promenades when he got up for the sunrise, and whom henever saw at other times; at midnight he met men prowling in the darkwhom he never met by day. But none of these were people of the greatworld. Before six o'clock they were sometimes second-cabin passengers, whose barrier was then lifted for a little while to give them the freedomof the saloon promenade. 

From time to time he thought he would look up his Ohioan, and revive froma closer study of him his interest in the rare American who had neverbeen to Europe. But he kept with his elderly wife, who had the effect ofwithholding him from March's advances. Young Mr. And Mrs. Leffers threwoff more and more their disguise of a long-married pair, and becamefrankly bride and groom. They seldom talked with any one else, except attable; they walked up and down together, smiling into each others faces;they sat side by side in their steamer chairs; one shawl covered themboth, and there was reason to believe that they were holding each other'shands under it. 

Mrs. Adding often took the chair beside Mrs. March when her husband wasstraying about the ship or reading in his berth; and the two ladies musthave exchanged autobiographies, for Mrs. March was able to tell him justhow long Mrs. Adding had been a widow, what her husband died of, and whathad been done to save him; how she was now perfectly wrapt up in her boy, and was taking him abroad, with some notion of going to Switzerland, after the summer's travel, and settling down with him at school there. She and Mrs. March became great friends; and Rose, as his mother calledhim, attached himself reverently to March, not only as a celebrity of thefirst grade in his quality of editor of 'Every Other Week', but as a sageof wisdom and goodness, with whom he must not lose the chance of counselupon almost every hypothesis and exigency of life. 

March could not bring himself to place Burnamy quite where he belonged incontemporary literature, when Rose put him very high in virtue of thepoem which he heard Burnamy was going to have printed in 'Every OtherWeek', and of the book which he was going to have published; and he letthe boy bring to the young fellow the flattery which can come to anyauthor but once, in the first request for his autograph that Burnamyconfessed to have had. They were so near in age, though they were tenyears apart, that Rose stood much more in awe of Burnamy than of othersmuch more his seniors. He was often in the company of Kenby, whom hevalued next to March as a person acquainted with men; he consulted Marchupon Kenby's practice of always taking up the language of the country hevisited, if it were only for a fortnight; and he conceived a higheropinion of him from March's approval. 

Burnamy was most with Mrs. March, who made him talk about himself when hesupposed he was talking about literature, in the hope that she could gethim to talk about the Triscoes; but she listened in vain as he pouredout-his soul in theories of literary art, and in histories of what he hadwritten and what he meant to write. When he passed them where they sattogether, March heard the young fellow's perpetually recurring I, I, I, my, my, my, me, me, me; and smiled to think how she was suffering underthe drip-drip of his innocent egotism. 

She bore in a sort of scientific patience his attentions to the pivotalgirl, and Miss Triscoe's indifference to him, in which a less penetratingscrutiny could have detected no change from meal to meal. It was only attable that she could see them together, or that she could note any breakin the reserve of the father and daughter. The signs of this were so finethat when she reported them March laughed in scornful incredulity. But atbreakfast the third day out, the Triscoes, with the authority of peopleaccustomed to social consideration, suddenly turned to the Marches, andbegan to make themselves agreeable; the father spoke to March of 'EveryOther Week', which he seemed to know of in its relation to him; and theyoung girl addressed herself to Mrs. March's motherly sense not the lessacceptably because indirectly. She spoke of going out with her father foran indefinite time, as if it were rather his wish than hers, and she madesome inquiries about places in Germany; they had never been in Germany. They had some idea of Dresden; but the idea of Dresden with its Americancolony seemed rather tiresome; and did Mrs. March know anything aboutWeimar?

Mrs. March was obliged to say that she knew nothing about anyplace inGermany; and she explained perhaps too fully where and why she was goingwith her husband. She fancied a Boston note in that scorn for thetiresomeness of Dresden; but the girl's style was of New York rather thanof Boston, and her accent was not quite of either place. Mrs. March beganto try the Triscoes in this place and in that, to divine them and toclass them. She had decided from the first that they were society people, but they were cultivated beyond the average of the few swells whom shehad met; and there had been nothing offensive in their manner of holdingthemselves aloof from the other people at the table; they had a right todo that if they chose. 

When the young Lefferses came in to breakfast, the talk went on betweenthese and the Marches; the Triscoes presently left the table, and Mrs. March rose soon after, eager for that discussion of their behavior whichMarch knew he should not be able to postpone. 

He agreed with her that they were society people, but she could not atonce accept his theory that they had themselves been the objects of anadvance from them because of their neutral literary quality, throughwhich they were of no social world, but potentially common to any. Latershe admitted this, as she said, for the sake of argument, though what shewanted him to see, now, was that this was all a step of the girl's towardfinding out something about Burnamy. 

The same afternoon, about the time the deck-steward was making his roundwith his cups, Miss Triscoe abruptly advanced upon her from a neighboringcorner of the bulkhead, and asked, with the air of one accustomed to haveher advances gratefully received, if she might sit by her. The girl tookMarch's vacant chair, where she had her cup of bouillon, which shecontinued to hold untasted in her hand after the first sip. Mrs. Marchdid the same with hers, and at the moment she had got very tired of doingit, Burnamy came by, for the hundredth time that day, and gave her ahundredth bow with a hundredth smile. He perceived that she wished to getrid of her cup, and he sprang to her relief. 

"May I take yours too?" he said very passively to Miss Triscoe. 

"You are very good. " she answered, and gave it. 

Mrs. March with a casual air suggested, "Do you know Mr. Burnamy, MissTriscoe?" The girl said a few civil things, but Burnamy did not try tomake talk with her while he remained a few moments before Mrs. March. Thepivotal girl came in sight, tilting and turning in a rare moment ofisolation at the corner of the music-room, and he bowed abruptly, andhurried off to join her. 

Miss Triscoe did not linger; she alleged the necessity of looking up herfather, and went away with a smile so friendly that Mrs. March mighteasily have construed it to mean that no blame attached itself to her inMiss Triscoe's mind. 

"Then you don't feel that it was a very distinct success?" her husbandasked on his return. 

"Not on the surface, " she said. 

"Better let ill enough alone, " he advised. 

She did not heed him. "All the same she cares for him. The very fact thatshe was so cold shows that. "

"And do you think her being cold will make him care for her?"

"If she wants it to. "

XIV. 

At dinner that day the question of 'The Maiden Knight' was debated amongthe noises and silences of the band. Young Mrs. Leffers had brought thebook to the table with her; she said she had not been able to lay it downbefore the last horn sounded; in fact she could have been seen reading itto her husband where he sat under the same shawl, the whole afternoon. 

"Don't you think it's perfectly fascinating, " she asked Mrs. Adding, withher petted mouth. 

"Well, " said the widow, doubtfully, "it's nearly a week since I read it, and I've had time to get over the glow. "

"Oh, I could just read it forever!" the bride exclaimed. 

"I like a book, " said her husband, "that takes me out of myself. I don'twant to think when I'm reading. "

March was going to attack this ideal, but he reflected in time that Mr. Leffers had really stated his own motive in reading. He compromised. "Well, I like the author to do my thinking for me. "

"Yes, " said the other, "that is what I mean. "

"The question is whether 'The Maiden Knight' fellow does it, " said Kenby, taking duck and pease from the steward at his shoulder. 

"What my wife likes in it is to see what one woman can do and besingle-handed, " said March. 

"No, " his wife corrected him, "what a man thinks she can. "

"I suppose, " said Mr. Triscoe, unexpectedly, "that we're like the Englishin our habit of going off about a book like a train of powder. "

"If you'll say a row of bricks, " March assented, "I'll agree with you. It's certainly Anglo-Saxon to fall over one another as we do, when we getgoing. It would be interesting to know just how much liking there is inthe popularity of a given book. "

"It's like the run of a song, isn't it?" Kenby suggested. "You can'tstand either, when it reaches a given point. "

He spoke to March and ignored Triscoe, who had hitherto ignored the restof the table. 

"It's very curious, " March said. "The book or the song catches a mood, orfeeds a craving, and when one passes or the other is glutted--"

"The discouraging part is, " Triscoe put in, still limiting himself to theMarches, "that it's never a question of real taste. The things that godown with us are so crude, so coarsely spiced; they tickle such a vulgarpalate--Now in France, for instance, " he suggested. 

"Well, I don't know, " returned the editor. "After all, we eat a good dealof bread, and we drink more pure water than any other people. Even whenwe drink it iced, I fancy it isn't so bad as absinthe. "

The young bride looked at him gratefully, but she said, "If we can't getice-water in Europe, I don't know what Mr. Leffers will do, " and the talkthreatened to pass among the ladies into a comparison of American andEuropean customs. 

Burnamy could not bear to let it. "I don't pretend to be very well up inFrench literature, " he began, "but I think such a book as 'The MaidenKnight' isn't such a bad piece of work; people are liking a prettywell-built story when they like it. Of course it's sentimental, and itbegs the question a good deal; but it imagines something heroic incharacter, and it makes the reader imagine it too. The man who wrote thatbook may be a donkey half the time, but he's a genius the other half. By-and-by he'll do something--after he's come to see that his 'MaidenKnight' was a fool--that I believe even you won't be down on, Mr. March, if he paints a heroic type as powerfully as he does in this book. "

He spoke with the authority of a journalist, and though he deferred toMarch in the end, he deferred with authority still. March liked him forcoming to the defence of a young writer whom he had not himself learnedto like yet. "Yes, " he said, "if he has the power you say, and can keepit after he comes to his artistic consciousness!"

Mrs. Leffers, as if she thought things were going her way, smiled; RoseAdding listened with shining eyes expectantly fixed on March; his motherviewed his rapture with tender amusement. The steward was at Kenby'sshoulder with the salad and his entreating "Bleace!" and Triscoe seemedto be questioning whether he should take any notice of Burnamy's generaldisagreement. He said at last: "I'm afraid we haven't the documents. Youdon't seem to have cared much for French books, and I haven't read 'TheMaiden Knight'. " He added to March: "But I don't defend absinthe. Ice-water is better. What I object to is our indiscriminate taste bothfor raw whiskey--and for milk-and-water. "

No one took up the question again, and it was Kenby who spoke next. "Thedoctor thinks, if this weather holds, that we shall be into PlymouthWednesday morning. I always like to get a professional opinion on theship's run. "

In the evening, as Mrs. March was putting away in her portfolio thejournal-letter which she was writing to send back from Plymouth to herchildren, Miss Triscoe drifted to the place where she sat at their tablein the dining-room by a coincidence which they both respected as casual. 

"We had quite a literary dinner, " she remarked, hovering for a momentnear the chair which she later sank into. "It must have made you feelvery much at home. Or perhaps you're so tired of it at home that youdon't talk about books. "

"We always talk shop, in some form or other, " said Mrs. March. "Myhusband never tires of it. A good many of the contributors come to us, you know. "

"It must be delightful, " said the girl. She added as if she ought toexcuse herself for neglecting an advantage that might have been hers ifshe had chosen, "I'm sorry one sees so little of the artistic andliterary set. But New York is such a big place. "

"New York people seem to be very fond of it, " said Mrs. March. "Those whohave always lived there. "

"We haven't always lived there, " said the girl. "But I think one has agood time there--the best time a girl can have. It's all very well comingover for the summer; one has to spend the summer somewhere. Are you goingout for a long time?"

"Only for the summer. First to Carlsbad. "

"Oh, yes. I suppose we shall travel about through Germany, and then go toParis. We always do; my father is very fond of it. "

"You must know it very well, " said Mrs. March, aimlessly. 

"I was born there, --if that means knowing it. I lived there--till I waseleven years old. We came home after my mother died. "

"Oh!" said Mrs. March. 

The girl did not go further into her family history; but by one of thoseleaps which seem to women as logical as other progressions, she arrivedat asking, "Is Mr. Burnamy one of the contributors?"

Mrs. March laughed. "He is going to be, as soon as his poem is printed. "

"Poem?"

"Yes. Mr. March thinks it's very good. "

"I thought he spoke very nicely about 'The Maiden Knight'. And he hasbeen very nice to papa. You know they have the same room. "

"I think Mr. Burnamy told me, " Mrs. March said. 

The girl went on. "He had the lower berth, and he gave it up to papa;he's done everything but turn himself out of doors. "

"I'm sure he's been very glad, " Mrs. March ventured on Burnamy's behalf, but very softly, lest if she breathed upon these budding confidences theyshould shrink and wither away. 

"I always tell papa that there's no country like America for realunselfishness; and if they're all like that, in Chicago!" The girlstopped, and added with a laugh, "But I'm always quarrelling with papaabout America. "

"We have a daughter living in Chicago, " said Mrs. March, alluringly. 

But Miss Triscoe refused the bait, either because she had said all shemeant, or because she had said all she would, about Chicago, which Mrs. March felt for the present to be one with Burnamy. She gave another ofher leaps. "I don't see why people are so anxious to get it like Europe, at home. They say that there was a time when there were no chaperonsbefore hoops, you know. " She looked suggestively at Mrs. March, restingone slim hand on the table, and controlling her skirt with the other, asif she were getting ready to rise at any moment. "When they used to siton their steps. "

"It was very pleasant before hoops--in every way, " said Mrs. March. "Iwas young, then; and I lived in Boston, where I suppose it was alwayssimpler than in New York. I used to sit on our steps. It was delightfulfor girls--the freedom. "

"I wish I had lived before hoops, " said Miss Triscoe. 

"Well, there must be places where it's before hoops yet: Seattle, andPortland, Oregon, for all I know, " Mrs. March suggested. "And there mustbe people in that epoch everywhere. "

"Like that young lady who twists and turns?" said Miss Triscoe, givingfirst one side of her face and then the other. "They have a good time. Isuppose if Europe came to us in one way it had to come in another. If itcame in galleries and all that sort of thing, it had to come inchaperons. You'll think I'm a great extremist, Mrs. March; but sometimesI wish there was more America instead of less. I don't believe it's asbad as people say. Does Mr. March, " she asked, taking hold of the chairwith one hand, to secure her footing from any caprice of the sea, whileshe gathered her skirt more firmly into the other, as she rose, "does hethink that America is going--all wrong?"

"All wrong? How?"

"Oh, in politics, don't you know. And government, and all that. Andbribing. And the lower classes having everything their own way. And thehorrid newspapers. And everything getting so expensive; and no regard forfamily, or anything of that kind. "

Mrs. March thought she saw what Miss Triscoe meant, but she answered, still cautiously, "I don't believe he does always. Though there are timeswhen he is very much disgusted. Then he says that he is getting tooold--and we always quarrel about that--to see things as they really are. He says that if the world had been going the way that people over fiftyhave always thought it was going, it would have gone to smash in the timeof the anthropoidal apes. "

"Oh, yes: Darwin, " said Miss Triscoe, vaguely. "Well, I'm glad he doesn'tgive it up. I didn't know but I was holding out just because I had arguedso much, and was doing it out of--opposition. Goodnight!" She called hersalutation gayly over her shoulder, and Mrs. March watched her glidingout of the saloon with a graceful tilt to humor the slight roll of theship, and a little lurch to correct it, once or twice, and wondered ifBurnamy was afraid of her; it seemed to her that if she were a young manshe should not be afraid of Miss Triscoe. 

The next morning, just after she had arranged herself in her steamerchair, he approached her, bowing and smiling, with the first of his manybows and smiles for the day, and at the same time Miss Triscoe cametoward her from the opposite direction. She nodded brightly to him, andhe gave her a bow and smile too; he always had so many of them to spare. 

"Here is your chair!" Mrs. March called to her, drawing the shawl out ofthe chair next her own. "Mr. March is wandering about the shipsomewhere. "

"I'll keep it for him, " said Miss Triscoe, and as Burnamy offered to takethe shawl that hung in the hollow of her arm, she let it slip into hishand with an "Oh; thank you, " which seemed also a permission for him towrap it about her in the chair. 

He stood talking before the ladies, but he looked up and down thepromenade. The pivotal girl showed herself at the corner of themusic-room, as she had done the day before. At first she revolved thereas if she were shedding her light on some one hidden round the corner;then she moved a few paces farther out and showed herself more obviouslyalone. Clearly she was there for Burnamy to come and walk with her; Mrs. March could see that, and she felt that Miss Triscoe saw it too. Shewaited for her to dismiss him to his flirtation; but Miss Triscoe keptchatting on, and he kept answering, and making no motion to get away. Mrs. March began to be as sorry for her as she was ashamed for him. Thenshe heard him saying, "Would you like a turn or two?" and Miss Triscoeanswering, "Why, yes, thank you, " and promptly getting out of her chairas if the pains they had both been at to get her settled in it were allnothing. 

She had the composure to say, "You can leave your shawl with me, MissTriscoe, " and to receive her fervent, "Oh, thank you, " before they sailedoff together, with inhuman indifference to the girl at the corner of themusic-room. Then she sank into a kind of triumphal collapse, from whichshe roused herself to point her husband to the chair beside her when hehappened along. 

He chose to be perverse about her romance. "Well, now, you had better letthem alone. Remember Kendricks. " He meant one of their young friendswhose love-affair they had promoted till his happy marriage left them inlasting doubt of what they had done. "My sympathies are all with thepivotal girl. Hadn't she as much right to him, for the time being, or forgood and all, as Miss Triscoe?"

"That depends upon what you think of Burnamy. "

"Well, I don't like to see a girl have a young man snatched away from herjust when she's made sure of him. How do you suppose she is feeling now?"

"She isn't feeling at all. She's letting her revolving light fall uponhalf a dozen other young men by this time, collectively or consecutively. All that she wants to make sure of is that they're young men--or oldones, even. "

March laughed, but not altogether at what his wife said. "I've beenhaving a little talk with Papa Triscoe, in the smoking-room. "

"You smell like it, " said his wife, not to seem too eager: "Well?"

"Well, Papa Triscoe seems to be in a pout. He doesn't think things aregoing as they should in America. He hasn't been consulted, or if he has, his opinion hasn't been acted upon. "

"I think he's horrid, " said Mrs. March. "Who are they?"

"I couldn't make out, and I couldn't ask. But I'll tell you what Ithink. "

"What?"

"That there's no chance for, Burnamy. He's taking his daughter out tomarry her to a crowned head. "

XV. 

It was this afternoon that the dance took place on the south promenade. Everybody came and looked, and the circle around the waltzers was threeor four deep. Between the surrounding heads and shoulders, the hats ofthe young ladies wheeling and whirling, and the faces of the men who werewheeling and whirling them, rose and sank with the rhythm of their steps. The space allotted to the dancing was walled to seaward with canvas, andwas prettily treated with German, and American flags: it was hard to gowrong with flags, Miss Triscoe said, securing herself under Mrs. March'swing. 

Where they stood they could see Burnamy's face, flashing and flushing inthe dance; at the end of the first piece he came to them, and remainedtalking and laughing till the music began again. 

"Don't you want to try it?" he asked abruptly of Miss Triscoe. 

"Isn't it rather--public?" she asked back. 

Mrs. March could feel the hand which the girl had put through her armthrill with temptation; but Burnamy could not. 

"Perhaps it is rather obvious, " he said, and he made a long glide overthe deck to the feet of the pivotal girl, anticipating another young manwho was rapidly advancing from the opposite quarter. The next moment herhat and his face showed themselves in the necessary proximity to eachother within the circle. 

"How well she dances!" said Miss Triscoe. 

"Do you think so? She looks as if she had been wound up and set going. "

"She's very graceful, " the girl persisted. 

The day ended with an entertainment in the saloon for one of the marinecharities which address themselves to the hearts and pockets ofpassengers on all steamers. There were recitations in English and German, and songs from several people who had kindly consented, and ever morepiano performance. Most of those who took part were of the race gifted inart and finance; its children excelled in the music, and its fatherscounted the gate-money during the last half of the programme, with anaudible clinking of the silver on the table before them. 

Miss Triscoe was with her father, and Mrs. March was herself chaperonedby Mr. Burnamy: her husband had refused to come to the entertainment. Shehoped to leave Burnamy and Miss Triscoe together before the eveningended; but Miss Triscoe merely stopped with her father, in quitting thesaloon, to laugh at some features of the entertainment, as people whotake no part in such things do; Burnamy stood up to exchange someunimpassioned words with her, and then they said good-night. 

The next morning, at five o'clock, the Norumbia came to anchor in thepretty harbor of Plymouth. In the cool early light the town lay distinctalong the shore, quaint with its small English houses, and stately withcome public edifices of unknown function on the uplands; a country-seatof aristocratic aspect showed itself on one of the heights; on anotherthe tower of a country church peered over the tree-tops; there were linesof fortifications, as peaceful, at their distance, as the stone wallsdividing the green fields. The very iron-clads in the harbor close athand contributed to the amiable gayety of the scene under the pale blueEnglish sky, already broken with clouds from which the flush of thesunrise had not quite faded. The breath of the land came freshly out overthe water; one could almost smell the grass and the leaves. Gulls wheeledand darted over the crisp water; the tones of the English voices on thetender were pleasant to the ear, as it fussed and scuffled to the ship'sside. A few score of the passengers left her; with their baggage theyformed picturesque groups on the tender's deck, and they set out for theshore waving their hands and their handkerchiefs to the friends they leftclustering along the rail of the Norumbia. Mr. And Mrs. Leffers badeMarch farewell, in the final fondness inspired by his having coffee withthem before they left the ship; they said they hated to leave. 

The stop had roused everybody, and the breakfast tables were promptlyfilled, except such as the passengers landing at Plymouth had vacated;these were stripped of their cloths, and the remaining commensals placedat others. The seats of the Lefferses were given to March's old Ohiofriend and his wife. He tried to engage them in the tally which began tobe general in the excitement of having touched land; but they shyly heldaloof. 

Some English newspapers had come aboard from the tug, and there was theusual good-natured adjustment of the American self-satisfaction, amongthose who had seen them, to the ever-surprising fact that our continentis apparently of no interest to Europe. There were some meagre New Yorkstock-market quotations in the papers; a paragraph in fine printannounced the lynching of a negro in Alabama; another recorded acoal-mining strike in Pennsylvania. 

"I always have to get used to it over again, " said Kenby. "This is thetwentieth time I have been across, and I'm just as much astonished as Iwas the first, to find out that they don't want to know anything about ushere. "

"Oh, " said March, "curiosity and the weather both come from the west. SanFrancisco wants to know about Denver, Denver about Chicago, Chicago aboutNew York, and New York about London; but curiosity never travels theother way any more than a hot wave or a cold wave. "

"Ah, but London doesn't care a rap about Vienna, " said Kenby. 

"Well, some pressures give out before they reach the coast, on our ownside. It isn't an infallible analogy. "

Triscoe was fiercely chewing a morsel, as if in haste to take part in thediscussion. He gulped it, and broke out. "Why should they care about us, anyway?"

March lightly ventured, "Oh, men and brothers, you know. "

"That isn't sufficient ground. The Chinese are men and brothers; so arethe South-Americans and Central-Africans, and Hawaiians; but we're notimpatient for the latest news about them. It's civilization thatinterests civilization. "

"I hope that fact doesn't leave us out in the cold with the barbarians?"Burnamy put in, with a smile. 

"Do you think we are civilized?" retorted the other. 

"We have that superstition in Chicago, " said Burnamy. He added, stillsmiling, "About the New-Yorkers, I mean. "

"You're more superstitious in Chicago than I supposed. New York is ananarchy, tempered by vigilance committees. "

"Oh, I don't think you can say that, " Kenby cheerfully protested, "sincethe Reformers came in. Look at our streets!"

"Yes, our streets are clean, for the time being, and when we look at themwe think we have made a clean sweep in our manners and morals. But howlong do you think it will be before Tammany will be in the saddle again?"

"Oh, never in the world!" said the optimistic head of the table. 

"I wish I had your faith; or I should if I didn't feel that it is one ofthe things that help to establish Tammanys with us. You will see ourTammany in power after the next election. " Kenby laughed in alarge-hearted incredulity; and his laugh was like fuel to the other'sflame. "New York is politically a mediaeval Italian republic, and it'smorally a frontier mining-town. Socially it's--" He stopped as if hecould not say what. 

"I think it's a place where you have a very nice time, papa, " said hisdaughter, and Burnamy smiled with her; not because he knew anything aboutit. 

Her father went on as if he had not heard her. "It's as vulgar and crudeas money can make it. Nothing counts but money, and as soon as there'senough, it counts for everything. In less than a year you'll have Tammanyin power; it won't be more than a year till you'll have it in society. "

"Oh no! Oh no!" came from Kenby. He did not care much for society, but hevaguely respected it as the stronghold of the proprieties and theamenities. 

"Isn't society a good place for Tammany to be in?" asked March in thepause Triscoe let follow upon Kenby's laugh. 

"There's no reason why it shouldn't be. Society is as bad as all the restof it. And what New York is, politically, morally, and socially, thewhole country wishes to be and tries to be. "

There was that measure of truth in the words which silences; no one couldfind just the terms of refutation. 

"Well, " said Kenby at last, "it's a good thing there are so many lines toEurope. We've still got the right to emigrate. "

"Yes, but even there we don't escape the abuse of our infamous newspapersfor exercising a man's right to live where he chooses. And there is nocountry in Europe--except Turkey, or Spain--that isn't a better home foran honest man than the United States. "

The Ohioan had once before cleared his throat as if he were going tospeak. Now, he leaned far enough forward to catch Triscoe's eye, andsaid, slowly and distinctly: "I don't know just what reason you have tofeel as you do about the country. I feel differently about itmyself--perhaps because I fought for it. "

At first, the others were glad of this arrogance; it even seemed ananswer; but Burnamy saw Miss Triscoe's cheek, flush, and then he doubtedits validity. 

Triscoe nervously crushed a biscuit in his hand, as if to expend aviolent impulse upon it. He said, coldly, "I was speaking from thatstand-point. "

The Ohioan shrank back in his seat, and March felt sorry for him, thoughhe had put himself in the wrong. His old hand trembled beside his plate, and his head shook, while his lips formed silent words; and his shy wifewas sharing his pain and shame. 

Kenby began to talk about the stop which the Norumbia was to make atCherbourg, and about what hour the next day they should all be inCuxhaven. Miss Triscoe said they had never come on the Hanseatic Linebefore, and asked several questions. Her father did not speak again, andafter a little while he rose without waiting for her to make the movefrom table; he had punctiliously deferred to her hitherto. Eltwin rose atthe same time, and March feared that he might be going to provoke anotherdefeat, in some way. 

Eltwin lifted his voice, and said, trying to catch Triscoe's eye, "Ithink I ought to beg your pardon, sir. I do beg your pardon. "

March perceived that Eltwin wished to make the offer of his reparation asdistinct as his aggression had been; and now he quaked for Triscoe, whosedaughter he saw glance apprehensively at her father as she swayed asideto let the two men come together. 

"That is all right, Colonel--"

"Major, " Eltwin conscientiously interposed. 

"Major, " Triscoe bowed; and he put out his hand and grasped the handwhich had been tremulously rising toward him. "There can't be any doubtof what we did, no matter what we've got. "

"No, no!" said the other, eagerly. "That was what I meant, sir. I don'tthink as you do; but I believe that a man who helped to save the countryhas a right to think what he pleases about it. "

Triscoe said, "That is all right, my dear sir. May I ask your regiment?"

The Marches let the old fellows walk away together, followed by the wifeof the one and the daughter of the other. They saw the young girl makingsome graceful overtures of speech to the elder woman as they went. 

"That was rather fine, my dear, " said Mrs. March. 

"Well, I don't know. It was a little too dramatic, wasn't it? It wasn'twhat I should have expected of real life. "

"Oh, you spoil everything! If that's the spirit you're going throughEurope in!"

"It isn't. As soon as I touch European soil I shall reform. "

XVI. 

That was not the first time General Triscoe had silenced question of hisopinions with the argument he had used upon Eltwin, though he was seldomable to use it so aptly. He always found that people suffered, his beliefin our national degeneration much more readily when they knew that he hadleft a diplomatic position in Europe (he had gone abroad as secretary ofa minor legation) to come home and fight for the Union. Some millions ofother men had gone into the war from the varied motives which impelledmen at that time; but he was aware that he had distinction, as a man ofproperty and a man of family, in doing so. His family had improved astime passed, and it was now so old that back of his grandfather it waslost in antiquity. This ancestor had retired from the sea and become amerchant in his native Rhode Island port, where his son establishedhimself as a physician, and married the daughter of a former slave-traderwhose social position was the highest in the place; Triscoe liked tomention his maternal grandfather when he wished a listener to realizejust how anomalous his part in a war against slavery was; it heightenedthe effect of his pose. 

He fought gallantly through the war, and he was brevettedBrigadier-General at the close. With this honor, and with the wound whichcaused an almost imperceptible limp in his gait, he won the heart of arich New York girl, and her father set him up in a business, which wasnot long in going to pieces in his hands. Then the young couple went tolive in Paris, where their daughter was born, and where the mother diedwhen the child was ten years old. A little later his father-in-law died, and Triscoe returned to New York, where he found the fortune which hisdaughter had inherited was much less than he somehow thought he had aright to expect. 

The income from her fortune was enough to live on, and he did not go backto Paris, where, in fact, things were not so much to his mind under theRepublic as they had been under the Second Empire. He was still willingto do something for his country, however, and he allowed his name to beused on a citizen's ticket in his district; but his provision-man wassent to Congress instead. Then he retired to Rhode Island and attemptedto convert his shore property into a watering-place; but after beingattractively plotted and laid out with streets and sidewalks, it alluredno one to build on it except the birds and the chipmonks, and he cameback to New York, where his daughter had remained in school. 

One of her maternal aunts made her a coming-out tea, after she leftschool; and she entered upon a series of dinners, dances, theatreparties, and receptions of all kinds; but the tide of fairy gold pouringthrough her fingers left no engagement-ring on them. She had no duties, but she seldom got out of humor with her pleasures; she had some oddtastes of her own, and in a society where none but the most serious bookswere ever seriously mentioned she was rather fond of good ones, and hadromantic ideas of a life that she vaguely called bohemian. Her characterwas never tested by anything more trying than the fear that her fathermight take her abroad to live; he had taken her abroad several times forthe summer. 

The dreaded trial did not approach for several years after she had ceasedto be a bud; and then it came when her father was again willing to servehis country in diplomacy, either at the Hague, or at Brussels, or even atBerne. Reasons of political geography prevented his appointment anywhere, but General Triscoe having arranged his affairs for going abroad on themission he had expected, decided to go without it. He was really very fitfor both of the offices he had sought, and so far as a man can deservepublic place by public service, he had deserved it. His pessimism wasuncommonly well grounded, and if it did not go very deep, it might wellhave reached the bottom of his nature. 

His daughter had begun to divine him at the early age when parentssuppose themselves still to be mysteries to their children. She did notthink it necessary ever to explain him to others; perhaps she would nothave found it possible; and now after she parted from Mrs. Eltwin andwent to sit down beside Mrs. March she did not refer to her father. Shesaid how sweet she had found the old lady from Ohio; and what sort ofplace did Mrs. March suppose it was where Mrs. Eltwin lived? They seemedto have everything there, like any place. She had wanted to ask Mrs. Eltwin if they sat on their steps; but she had not quite dared. 

Burnamy came by, slowly, and at Mrs. March's suggestion he took one ofthe chairs on her other side, to help her and Miss Triscoe look at theChannel Islands and watch the approach of the steamer to Cherbourg, wherethe Norumbia was to land again. The young people talked across Mrs. Marchto each other, and said how charming the islands were, in theirgray-green insubstantiality, with valleys furrowing them far inward, likeairy clefts in low banks of clouds. It seemed all the nicer not to knowjust which was which; but when the ship drew nearer to Cherbourg, hesuggested that they could see better by going round to the other side ofthe ship. Miss Triscoe, as at the other times when she had gone off withBurnamy, marked her allegiance, to Mrs. March by leaving a wrap with her. 

Every one was restless in breaking with the old life at sea. There hadbeen an equal unrest when the ship first sailed; people had first comeaboard in the demoralization of severing their ties with home, and theyshrank from forming others. Then the charm of the idle, eventless lifegrew upon them, and united them in a fond reluctance from the inevitableend. 

Now that the beginning of the end had come, the pangs of disintegrationwere felt in all the once-more-repellant particles. Burnamy and MissTriscoe, as they hung upon the rail, owned to each other that they hatedto have the voyage over. They had liked leaving Plymouth and being at seaagain; they wished that they need not be reminded of another debarkationby the energy of the crane in hoisting the Cherbourg baggage from thehold. 

They approved of the picturesqueness of three French vessels of war thatpassed, dragging their kraken shapes low through the level water. AtCherbourg an emotional French tender came out to the ship, very differentin her clamorous voices and excited figures from the steady self-controlof the English tender at Plymouth; and they thought the Frenchfortifications much more on show than the English had been. Nothingmarked their youthful date so much to the Marches, who presently joinedthem, as their failure to realize that in this peaceful sea the greatbattle between the Kearsarge and the Alabama was fought. The elder coupletried to affect their imaginations with the fact which reanimated thespectre of a dreadful war for themselves; but they had to pass on and, leave the young people unmoved. 

Mrs. March wondered if they noticed the debarkation of the pivotal girl, whom she saw standing on the deck of the tender, with her hands at herwaist, and giving now this side and now that side of her face to theyoung men waving their hats to her from the rail of the ship. Burnamy wasnot of their number, and he seemed not to know that the girl was leavinghim finally to Miss Triscoe. If Miss Triscoe knew it she did nothing thewhole of that long, last afternoon to profit by the fact. Burnamy spent agreat part of it in the chair beside Mrs. March, and he showed anintolerable resignation to the girl's absence. 

"Yes, " said March, taking the place Burnamy left at last, "that terriblepatience of youth!"

"Patience? Folly! Stupidity! They ought to be together every instant! Dothey suppose that life is full of such chances? Do they think that fatehas nothing to do but--"

She stopped for a fit climax, and he suggested, "Hang round and wait onthem?"

"Yes! It's their one chance in a life-time, probably. "

"Then you've quite decided that they're in love?" He sank comfortablyback, and put up his weary legs on the chair's extension with theconviction that love had no such joy as that to offer. 

"I've decided that they're intensely interested in each other. "

"Then what more can we ask of them? And why do you care what they do ordon't do with their chance? Why do you wish their love well, if it'sthat? Is marriage such a very certain good?"

"It isn't all that it might be, but it's all that there is. What wouldour lives have been without it?" she retorted. 

"Oh, we should have got on. It's such a tremendous risk that we, ought togo round begging people to think twice, to count a hundred, or anonillion, before they fall in love to the marrying-point. I don't mindtheir flirting; that amuses them; but marrying is a different thing. Idoubt if Papa Triscoe would take kindly to the notion of a son-in-law hehadn't selected himself, and his daughter doesn't strike me as a younglady who has any wisdom to throw away on a choice. She has her littlecharm; her little gift of beauty, of grace, of spirit, and the otherthings that go with her age and sex; but what could she do for a fellowlike Burnamy, who has his way to make, who has the ladder of fame toclimb, with an old mother at the bottom of it to look after? You wouldn'twant him to have an eye on Miss Triscoe's money, even if she had money, and I doubt if she has much. It's all very pretty to have a girl like herfascinated with a youth of his simple traditions; though Burnamy isn'taltogether pastoral in his ideals, and he looks forward to a place in thevery world she belongs to. I don't think it's for us to promote theaffair. "

"Well, perhaps you're right, " she sighed. "I will let them alone fromthis out. Thank goodness, I shall not have them under my eyes very long. "

"Oh, I don't think there's any harm done yet, " said her husband, with alaugh. 

At dinner there seemed so little harm of the kind he meant that shesuffered from an illogical disappointment. The young people got throughthe meal with no talk that seemed inductive; Burnamy left the tablefirst, and Miss Triscoe bore his going without apparent discouragement;she kept on chatting with March till his wife took him away to theirchairs on deck. 

There were a few more ships in sight than there were in mid-ocean; butthe late twilight thickened over the North Sea quite like the night afterthey left New York, except that it was colder; and their hearts turned totheir children, who had been in abeyance for the week past, with aremorseful pang. "Well, " she said, "I wish we were going to be in New Yorkto-morrow, instead of Hamburg. "

"Oh, no! Oh, no!" he protested. "Not so bad as that, my dear. This is thelast night, and it's hard to manage, as the last night always is. Isuppose the last night on earth--"

"Basil!" she implored. 

"Well, I won't, then. But what I want is to see a Dutch lugger. I'venever seen a Dutch lugger, and--"

She suddenly pressed his arm, and in obedience to the signal he wassilent; though it seemed afterwards that he ought to have gone on talkingas if he did not see Burnamy and Miss Triscoe swinging slowly by. Theywere walking close together, and she was leaning forward and looking upinto his face while he talked. 

"Now, " Mrs. March whispered, long after they were out of hearing, "let usgo instantly. I wouldn't for worlds have them see us here when they getfound again. They would feel that they had to stop and speak, and thatwould spoil everything. Come!"

XVII. 

Burnamy paused in a flow of autobiography, and modestly waited for MissTriscoe's prompting. He had not to wait long. 

"And then, how soon did you think of printing your things in a book?"

"Oh, about as soon as they began to take with the public. "

"How could you tell that they were-taking?"

"They were copied into other papers, and people talked about them. "

"And that was what made Mr. Stoller want you to be his secretary?"

"I don't believe it was. The theory in the office was that he didn'tthink much of them; but he knows I can write shorthand, and put thingsinto shape. "

"What things?"

"Oh--ideas. He has a notion of trying to come forward in politics. Heowns shares in everything but the United States Senate--gas, electricity, railroads, aldermen, newspapers--and now he would like some Senate. That's what I think. "

She did not quite understand, and she was far from knowing that thiscynic humor expressed a deadlier pessimism than her father's fiercestaccusals of the country. "How fascinating it is!" she said, innocently. 

"And I suppose they all envy your coming out?"

"In the office?"

"Yes. I should envy, them--staying. "

Burnamy laughed. "I don't believe they envy me. It won't be all roses forme--they know that. But they know that I can take care of myself if itisn't. " He remembered something one of his friends in the office had saidof the painful surprise the Bird of Prey would feel if he ever tried hisbeak on him in the belief that he was soft. 

She abruptly left the mere personal question. "And which would you ratherwrite: poems or those kind of sketches?"

"I don't know, " said Burnamy, willing to talk of himself on any terms. "Isuppose that prose is the thing for our time, rather more; but there arethings you can't say in prose. I used to write a great deal of verse incollege; but I didn't have much luck with editors till Mr. March tookthis little piece for 'Every Other Week'. "

"Little? I thought it was a long poem!"

Burnamy laughed at the notion. "It's only eight lines. "

"Oh!" said the girl. "What is it about?"

He yielded to the temptation with a weakness which he found incredible ina person of his make. "I can repeat it if you won't give me away to Mrs. March. "

"Oh, no indeed!" He said the lines over to her very simply and well. "They are beautiful--beautiful!"

"Do you think so?" he gasped, in his joy at her praise. 

"Yes, lovely. Do you know, you are the first literary man--the onlyliterary man--I ever talked with. They must go out--somewhere! Papa mustmeet them at his clubs. But I never do; and so I'm making the most ofyou. "

"You can't make too much of me, Miss Triscoe, " said Burnamy. 

She would not mind his mocking. "That day you spoke about 'The MaidenKnight', don't you know, I had never heard any talk about books in thatway. I didn't know you were an author then. "

"Well, I'm not much of an author now, " he said, cynically, to retrievehis folly in repeating his poem to her. 

"Oh, that will do for you to say. But I know what Mrs. March thinks. "

He wished very much to know what Mrs. March thought, too; 'Every OtherWeek' was such a very good place that he could not conscientiouslyneglect any means of having his work favorably considered there; if Mrs. March's interest in it would act upon her husband, ought not he to knowjust how much she thought of him as a writer? "Did she like the poem. "

Miss Triscoe could not recall that Mrs. March had said anything about thepoem, but she launched herself upon the general current of Mrs. March'sliking for Burnamy. "But it wouldn't do to tell you all she said!" Thiswas not what he hoped, but he was richly content when she returned to hispersonal history. "And you didn't know any one when, you went up toChicago from--"

"Tippecanoe? Not exactly that. I wasn't acquainted with any one in theoffice, but they had printed somethings of mine, and they were willing tolet me try my hand. That was all I could ask. "

"Of course! You knew you could do the rest. Well, it is like a romance. Awoman couldn't have such an adventure as that!" sighed the girl. 

"But women do!" Burnamy retorted. "There is a girl writing on the papernow--she's going to do the literary notices while I'm gone--who came toChicago from Ann Arbor, with no more chance than I had, and who's madeher way single-handed from interviewing up. "

"Oh, " said Miss Triscoe, with a distinct drop in her enthusiasm. "Is shenice?"

"She's mighty clever, and she's nice enough, too, though the kind ofjournalism that women do isn't the most dignified. And she's one of thebest girls I know, with lots of sense. "

"It must be very interesting, " said Miss Triscoe, with little interest inthe way she said it. "I suppose you're quite a little community byyourselves. "

"On the paper?"

"Yes. "

"Well, some of us know one another, in the office, but most of us don't. There's quite a regiment of people on a big paper. If you'd like to comeout, " Burnamy ventured, "perhaps you could get the Woman's Page to do. "

"What's that?"

"Oh, fashion; and personal gossip about society leaders; and recipes fordishes and diseases; and correspondence on points of etiquette. "

He expected her to shudder at the notion, but she merely asked, "Do womenwrite it?"

He laughed reminiscently. "Well, not always. We had one man who used todo it beautifully--when he was sober. The department hasn't had anypermanent head since. "

He was sorry he had said this, but it did not seem to shock her, and nodoubt she had not taken it in fully. She abruptly left the subject. "Doyou know what time we really get in to-morrow?"

"About one, I believe--there's a consensus of stewards to that effect, anyway. " After a pause he asked, "Are you likely to be in Carlsbad?"

"We are going to Dresden, first, I believe. Then we may go on down toVienna. But nothing is settled, yet. "

"Are you going direct to Dresden?"

"I don't know. We may stay in Hamburg a day or two. "

"I've got to go straight to Carlsbad. There's a sleeping-car that willget me there by morning: Mr. Stoller likes zeal. But I hope you'll let mebe of use to you any way I can, before we part tomorrow. "

"You're very kind. You've been very good already--to papa. " He protestedthat he had not been at all good. "But he's used to taking care ofhimself on the other side. Oh, it's this side, now!"

"So it is! How strange that seems! It's actually Europe. But as long aswe're at sea, we can't realize it. Don't you hate to have experiencesslip through your fingers?"

"I don't know. A girl doesn't have many experiences of her own; they'realways other people's. "

This affected Burnamy as so profound that he did not question its truth. He only suggested, "Well; sometimes they make other people have theexperiences. "

Whether Miss Triscoe decided that this was too intimate or not she leftthe question. "Do you understand German?"

"A little. I studied it at college, and I've cultivated a sort ofbeer-garden German in Chicago. I can ask for things. "

"I can't, except in French, and that's worse than English, in Germany, Ihear. "

"Then you must let me be your interpreter up to the last moment. Willyou?"

She did not answer. "It must be rather late, isn't it?" she asked. He lether see his watch, and she said, "Yes, it's very late, " and led the waywithin. "I must look after my packing; papa's always so prompt, and Imust justify myself for making him let me give up my maid when we lefthome; we expect to get one in Dresden. Good-night!"

Burnamy looked after her drifting down their corridor, and wonderedwhether it would have been a fit return for her expression of a sense ofnovelty in him as a literary man if he had told her that she was thefirst young lady he had known who had a maid. The fact awed him; MissTriscoe herself did not awe him so much. 

XVIII. 

The next morning was merely a transitional period, full of turmoil anddisorder, between the broken life of the sea and the untried life of theshore. No one attempted to resume the routine of the voyage. People wentand came between their rooms and the saloons and the decks, and were nolonger careful to take their own steamer chairs when they sat down for amoment. 

In the cabins the berths were not made up, and those who remained belowhad to sit on their hard edges, or on the sofas, which were cumberedwith, hand-bags and rolls of shawls. At an early hour after breakfast thebedroom stewards began to get the steamer trunks out and pile them in thecorridors; the servants all became more caressingly attentive; and peoplewho had left off settling the amount of the fees they were going to give, anxiously conferred together. The question whether you ought ever to givethe head steward anything pressed crucially at the early lunch, and Kenbybrought only a partial relief by saying that he always regarded the headsteward as an officer of the ship. March made the experiment of offeringhim six marks, and the head steward took them quite as if he were not anofficer of the ship. He also collected a handsome fee for the music, which is the tax levied on all German ships beyond the tolls exacted onthe steamers of other nations. 

After lunch the flat shore at Cuxhaven was so near that the summercottages of the little watering-place showed through the warm drizzlemuch like the summer cottages of our own shore, and if it had not beenfor the strange, low sky, the Americans might easily have fanciedthemselves at home again. 

Every one waited on foot while the tender came out into the stream wherethe Norumbia had dropped anchor. People who had brought theirhand-baggage with them from their rooms looked so much safer with it thatpeople who had left theirs to their stewards had to go back and pledgethem afresh not to forget it. The tender came alongside, and the transferof the heavy trunks began, but it seemed such an endless work that everyone sat down in some other's chair. At last the trunks were all on thetender, and the bareheaded stewards began to run down the gangways withthe hand-baggage. "Is this Hoboken?" March murmured in his wife's ear, with a bewildered sense of something in the scene like the reversedaction of the kinematograph. 

On the deck of the tender there was a brief moment of reunion among thecompanions of the voyage, the more intimate for their being crowdedtogether under cover from the drizzle which now turned into a dashingrain. Burnamy's smile appeared, and then Mrs. March recognized MissTriscoe and her father in their travel dress; they were not far fromBurnamy's smile, but he seemed rather to have charge of the Eltwins, whomhe was helping look after their bags and bundles. Rose Adding was talkingwith Kenby, and apparently asking his opinion of something; Mrs. Addingsat near them tranquilly enjoying her son. 

Mrs. March made her husband identify their baggage, large and small, andafter he had satisfied her, he furtively satisfied himself by a freshcount that it was all there. But he need not have taken the trouble;their long, calm bedroom-steward was keeping guard over it; his eyesexpressed a contemptuous pity for their anxiety, whose like he must havebeen very tired of. He brought their handbags into the customs-room atthe station where they landed; and there took a last leave and a last feewith unexpected cordiality. 

Again their companionship suffered eclipse in the distraction which thecustoms inspectors of all countries bring to travellers; and again theywere united during the long delay in the waiting-room, which was also therestaurant. It was full of strange noises and figures and odors--theshuffling of feet, the clash of crockery, the explosion of nervous Germanvoices, mixed with the smell of beer and ham, and the smoke of cigars. Through it all pierced the wail of a postman standing at the door with aletter in his hand and calling out at regular intervals, "Krahnay, Krahnay!" When March could bear it no longer he went up to him andshouted, "Crane! Crane!" and the man bowed gratefully, and began to cry, "Kren! Kren!" But whether Mr. Crane got his letter or not, he never knew. 

People were swarming at the window of the telegraph-office, and sendinghome cablegrams to announce their safe arrival; March could not forbearcabling to his son, though he felt it absurd. There was a great deal oftalking, but no laughing, except among the Americans, and the girlsbehind the bar who tried to understand, what they wanted, and then servedthem with what they chose for them. Otherwise the Germans, thoughvoluble, were unsmiling, and here on the threshold of their empire thetravellers had their first hint of the anxious mood which seems habitualwith these amiable people. 

Mrs. Adding came screaming with glee to March where he sat with his wife, and leaned over her son to ask, "Do you know what lese-majesty is? Roseis afraid I've committed it!"

"No, I don't, " said March. "But it's the unpardonable sin. What have youbeen doing?"

"I asked the official at the door when our train would start, and when hesaid at half past three, I said, 'How tiresome!' Rose says the railroadsbelong to the state here, and that if I find fault with the time-table, it's constructive censure of the Emperor, and that's lese-majesty. " Shegave way to her mirth, while the boy studied March's face with anappealing smile. 

"Well, I don't think you'll be arrested this time, Mrs. Adding; but Ihope it will be a warning to Mrs. March. She's been complaining of thecoffee. "

"Indeed I shall say what I like, " said Mrs. March. "I'm an American. "

"Well, you'll find you're a German, if you like to say anythingdisagreeable about the coffee in the restaurant of the Emperor's railroadstation; the first thing you know I shall be given three months on youraccount. "

Mrs. Adding asked: "Then they won't punish ladies? There, Rose! I'm safe, you see; and you're still a minor, though you are so wise for youryears. "

She went back to her table, where Kenby came and sat down by her. 

"I don't know that I quite like her playing on that sensitive child, ", said Mrs. March. "And you've joined with her in her joking. Go and speak, to him!"

The boy was slowly following his mother, with his head fallen. Marchovertook him, and he started nervously at the touch of a hand on hisshoulder, and then looked gratefully up into the man's face. March triedto tell him what the crime of lese-majesty was, and he said: "Oh, yes. Iunderstood that. But I got to thinking; and I don't want my mother totake any risks. "

"I don't believe she will, really, Rose. But I'll speak to her, and tellher she can't be too cautious. "

"Not now, please!" the boy entreated. 

"Well, I'll find another chance, " March assented. He looked round andcaught a smiling nod from Burnamy, who was still with the Eltwins; theTriscoes were at a table by themselves; Miss Triseoe nodded too, but herfather appeared not to see March. "It's all right, with Rose, " he said, when he sat down again by his wife; "but I guess it's all over withBurnamy, " and he told her what he had seen. "Do you think it came to anydispleasure between them last night? Do you suppose he offered himself, and she--"

"What nonsense!" said Mrs. March, but she was not at peace. "It's herfather who's keeping her away from him. "

"I shouldn't mind that. He's keeping her away from us, too. " But at thatmoment Miss Triscoe as if she had followed his return from afar, cameover to speak to his wife. She said they were going on to Dresden thatevening, and she was afraid they might have no chance to see each otheron the train or in Hamburg. March, at this advance, went to speak withher father; he found him no more reconciled to Europe than America. 

"They're Goths, " he said of the Germans. "I could hardly get that stupidbrute in the telegraph-office to take my despatch. "

On his way back to his wife March met Miss Triscoe; he was not altogethersurprised to meet Burnamy with her, now. The young fellow asked if hecould be of any use to him, and then he said he would look him up in thetrain. He seemed in a hurry, but when he walked away with Miss Triscoe hedid not seem in a hurry. 

March remarked upon the change to his wife, and she sighed, "Yes, you cansee that as far as they're concerned. "

"It's a great pity that there should be parents to complicate theseaffairs, " he said. "How simple it would be if there were no parties tothem but the lovers! But nature is always insisting upon fathers andmothers, and families on both sides. "

XIX. 

The long train which they took at last was for the Norumbia's peoplealone, and it was of several transitional and tentative types of cars. Some were still the old coach-body carriages; but most were of a strangecorridor arrangement, with the aide at the aide, and the seats crossingfrom it, with compartments sometimes rising to the roof, and sometimesrising half-way. No two cars seemed quite alike, but all were verycomfortable; and when the train began to run out through the littlesea-side town into the country, the old delight of foreign travel began. Most of the houses were little and low and gray, with ivy or floweringvines covering their walls to their browntiled roofs; there was here andthere a touch of Northern Gothic in the architecture; but usually whereit was pretentious it was in the mansard taste, which was so bad with usa generation ago, and is still very bad in Cuxhaven. 

The fields, flat and wide, were dotted with familiar shapes of Holsteincattle, herded by little girls, with their hair in yellow pigtails. Thegray, stormy sky hung low, and broke in fitful rains; but perhaps for theinclement season of mid-summer it was not very cold. Flowers wereblooming along the embankments and in the rank green fields with a doggedenergy; in the various distances were groups of trees embowering cottagesand even villages, and always along the ditches and watercourses weredouble lines of low willows. At the first stop the train made, thepassengers flocked to the refreshment-booth, prettily arranged beside thestation, where the abundance of the cherries and strawberries gave proofthat vegetation was in other respects superior to the elements. But itwas not of the profusion of the sausages, and the ham which openly inslices or covertly in sandwiches claimed its primacy in the Germanaffections; every form of this was flanked by tall glasses of beer. 

A number of the natives stood by and stared unsmiling at the train, whichhad broken out in a rash of little American flags at every window. Thisboyish display, which must have made the Americans themselves laugh, iftheir sense of humor had not been lost in their impassioned patriotism, was the last expression of unity among the Norumbia's passengers, andthey met no more in their sea-solidarity. Of their table acquaintance theMarches saw no one except Burnamy, who came through the train looking forthem. He said he was in one of the rear cars with the Eltwins, and wasgoing to Carlsbad with them in the sleeping-car train leaving Hamburg atseven. He owned to having seen the Triscoes since they had left Cuxhaven;Mrs. March would not suffer herself to ask him whether they were in thesame carriage with the Eltwins. He had got a letter from Mr. Stoller atCuxhaven, and he begged the Marches to let him engage rooms for them atthe hotel where he was going to stay with him. 

After they reached Hamburg they had flying glimpses of him and of othersin the odious rivalry to get their baggage examined first which seizedupon all, and in which they no longer knew one another, but selfishlystruggled for the good-will of porters and inspectors. There was reallyno such haste; but none could govern themselves against the generalfrenzy. With the porter he secured March conspired and perspired to winthe attention of a cold but not unkindly inspector. The officer openedone trunk, and after a glance at it marked all as passed, and then thereensued a heroic strife with the porter as to the pieces which were to goto the Berlin station for their journey next day, and the pieces whichwere to go to the hotel overnight. At last the division was made; theMarches got into a cab of the first class; and the porter, crimson andsteaming at every pore from the physical and intellectual strain, wentback into the station. 

They had got the number of their cab from the policeman who stands at thedoor of all large German stations and supplies the traveller with ametallic check for the sort of vehicle he demands. They were not proud, but it seemed best not to risk a second-class cab in a strange city, andwhen their first-class cab came creaking and limping out of the rank, they saw how wise they had been, if one of the second class could havebeen worse. 

As they rattled away from the station they saw yet another kind ofturnout, which they were destined to see more and more in the Germanlands. It was that team of a woman harnessed with a dog to a cart whichthe women of no other country can see without a sense of personal insult. March tried to take the humorous view, and complained that they had notbeen offered the choice of such an equipage by the policeman, but hiswife would not be amused. She said that no country which suffered such athing could be truly civilized, though he made her observe that no cityin the world, except Boston or Brooklyn, was probably so thoroughlytrolleyed as Hamburg. The hum of the electric car was everywhere, andeverywhere the shriek of the wires overhead; batlike flights ofconnecting plates traversed all the perspectives through which they droveto the pleasant little hotel they had chosen. 

XX. 

On one hand their windows looked toward a basin of the Elbe, wherestately white swans were sailing; and on the other to the new Rathhaus, over the trees that deeply shaded the perennial mud of a cold, dim publicgarden, where water-proof old women and impervious nurses sat, andchildren played in the long twilight of the sour, rain-soaked summer ofthe fatherland. It was all picturesque, and within-doors there was thenovelty of the meagre carpets and stalwart furniture of the Germans, andtheir beds, which after so many ages of Anglo-Saxon satire remainimmutably preposterous. They are apparently imagined for the stature ofsleepers who have shortened as they broadened; their pillows aretriangularly shaped to bring the chin tight upon the breast under thebloated feather bulk which is meant for covering, and which rises overthe sleeper from a thick substratum of cotton coverlet, neatly buttonedinto the upper sheet, with the effect of a portly waistcoat. 

The hotel was illumined by the kindly splendor of the uniformed portier, who had met the travellers at the door, like a glowing vision of thepast, and a friendly air diffused itself through the whole house. At thedinner, which, if not so cheap as they had somehow hoped, was by no meansbad, they took counsel with the English-speaking waiter as to whatentertainment Hamburg could offer for the evening, and by the time theyhad drunk their coffee they had courage for the Circus Renz, which seemedto be all there was. 

The conductor of the trolley-car, which they hailed at the street corner, stopped it and got off the platform, and stood in the street until theywere safely aboard, without telling them to step lively, or pulling themup the steps; or knuckling them in the back to make them move forward. Helet them get fairly seated before he started the car, and so lost the funof seeing them lurch and stagger violently, and wildly clutch each otherfor support. The Germans have so little sense of humor that probably noone in the car would have been amused to see the strangers flung upon thefloor. No one apparently found it droll that the conductor should touchhis cap to them when he asked for their fare; no one smiled at theirefforts to make him understand where they wished to go, and he did notwink at the other passengers in trying to find out. Whenever the carstopped he descended first, and did not remount till the dismountingpassenger had taken time to get well away from it. When the Marches gotinto the wrong car in coming home, and were carried beyond their street, the conductor would not take their fare. 

The kindly civility which environed them went far to alleviate theinclemency of the climate; it began to rain as soon as they left theshelter of the car, but a citizen of whom they asked the nearest way tothe Circus Renz was so anxious to have them go aright that they did notmind the wet, and the thought of his goodness embittered March'sself-reproach for under-tipping the sort of gorgeous heyduk, with a stafflike a drum-major's, who left his place at the circus door to get theirtickets. He brought them back with a magnificent bow, and was then asvisibly disappointed with the share of the change returned to him as achild would have been. 

They went to their places with the sting of his disappointment ranklingin their hearts. "One ought always to overpay them, " March sighed, "and Iwill do it from this time forth; we shall not be much the poorer for it. That heyduk is not going to get off with less than a mark when we comeout. " As an earnest of his good faith he gave the old man who showed themto their box a tip that made him bow double, and he bought everyconceivable libretto and play-bill offered him at prices fixed by hisremorse. 

"One ought to do it, " he said. "We are of the quality of good geniuses tothese poor souls; we are Fortune in disguise; we are money found in theroad. It is an accursed system, but they are more its victims than we. "His wife quite agreed with him, and with the same good conscience betweenthem they gave themselves up to the pure joy which the circus, of allmodern entertainments, seems alone to inspire. The house was full fromfloor to roof when they came ins and every one was intent upon the twoSpanish clowns, Lui-Lui and Soltamontes, whose drolleries spoke theuniversal language of circus humor, and needed no translation into eitherGerman or English. They had missed by an event or two the more patrioticattraction of "Miss Darlings, the American Star, " as she was billed inEnglish, but they were in time for one of those equestrian performanceswhich leave the spectator almost exanimate from their prolixity, and thepantomimic piece which closed the evening. 

This was not given until nearly the whole house had gone out and stayeditself with beer and cheese and ham and sausage, in the restaurant whichpurveys these light refreshments in the summer theatres all over Germany. When the people came back gorged to the throat, they sat down in theright mood to enjoy the allegory of "The Enchanted Mountain's Fantasy;the Mountain episodes; the High-interesting Sledges-Courses on the SteepAcclivities; the Amazing-Up-rush of the thence plunging-Four Trains, which arrive with Lightnings-swiftness at the Top of theover-40-feet-high Mountain-the Highest Triumph of the To-day'sCircus-Art; the Sledge-journey in the Wizard-mountain, and the FairyBallet in the Realm of the Ghost-prince, with Gold and Silver, Jewel, Bloomghosts, Gnomes, Gnomesses, and Dwarfs, in never-till-now-seenSplendor of Costume. " The Marches were happy in this allegory, andhappier in the ballet, which is everywhere delightfully innocent, andwhich here appealed with the large flat feet and the plain good faces ofthe 'coryphees' to all that was simplest and sweetest in their natures. They could not have resisted, if they had wished, that environment, ofgood-will; and if it had not been for the disappointed heyduk, they wouldhave got home from their evening at the Circus Renz without a pang. 

They looked for him everywhere when they came out, but he had vanished, and they were left with a regret which, if unavailing, was not toopoignant. In spite of it they had still an exhilaration in their releasefrom the companionship of their fellow-voyagers which they analyzed asthe psychical revulsion from the strain of too great interest in them. Mrs. March declared that for the present, at least, she wanted Europequite to themselves; and she said that not even for the pleasure ofseeing Burnamy and Miss Triscoe come into their box together world shehave suffered an American trespass upon their exclusive possession of theCircus Renz. 

In the audience she had seen German officers for the first time inHamburg, and she meant, if unremitting question could bring out thetruth, to know why she had not met any others. She had read much of theprevalence and prepotence of the German officers who would try to pushher off the sidewalk, till they realized that she was an American woman, and would then submit to her inflexible purpose of holding it. But shehad been some seven or eight hours in Hamburg, and nothing of the kindhad happened to her, perhaps because she had hardly yet walked a block inthe city streets, but perhaps also because there seemed to be very fewofficers or military of any kind in Hamburg. 

XXI. 

Their absence was plausibly explained, the next morning, by the youngGerman friend who came in to see the Marches at breakfast. He saidHamburg had been so long a free republic that the presence of a largeimperial garrison was distasteful to the people, and as a matter of factthere were very few soldiers quartered there, whether the authoritieschose to indulge the popular grudge or not. He was himself in a joyfulflutter of spirits, for he had just the day before got his release frommilitary service. He gave them a notion of what the rapture of a manreprieved from death might be, and he was as radiantly happy in the illhealth which had got him his release as if it had been the greatestblessing of heaven. He bubbled over with smiling regrets that he shouldbe leaving his home for the first stage of the journey which he was totake in search of strength, just as they had come, and he pressed them tosay if there were not something that he could do for them. 

"Yes, " said Mrs. March, with a promptness surprising to her husband, whocould think of nothing; "tell us where Heinrich Heine lived when he wasin Hamburg. My husband has always had a great passion for him and wantsto look him up everywhere. "

March had forgotten that Heine ever lived in Hamburg, and the young manhad apparently never known it. His face fell; he wished to make Mrs. March believe that it was only Heine's uncle who had lived there; but shewas firm; and when he had asked among the hotel people he came backgladly owning that he was wrong, and that the poet used to live inKonigstrasse, which was very near by, and where they could easily knowthe house by his bust set in its front. The portier and the head waitershared his ecstasy in so easily obliging the friendly American pair, andjoined him in minutely instructing the driver when they shut them intotheir carriage. 

They did not know that his was almost the only laughing face they shouldsee in the serious German Empire; just as they did not know that itrained there every day. As they drove off in the gray drizzle with theunfounded hope that sooner or later the weather would be fine, they badetheir driver be very slow in taking them through Konigstrasse, so that heshould by no means Miss Heine's dwelling, and he duly stopped in front ofa house bearing the promised bust. They dismounted in order to revere itmore at their ease, but the bust proved, by an irony bitterer than thesick, heart-breaking, brilliant Jew could have imagined in his cruelestmoment, to be that of the German Milton, the respectable poet Klopstock, whom Heine abhorred and mocked so pitilessly. 

In fact it was here that the good, much-forgotten Klopstock dwelt, whenhe came home to live with a comfortable pension from the Danishgovernment; and the pilgrims to the mistaken shrine went asking aboutamong the neighbors in Konigstrasse, for some manner of house where Heinemight have lived; they would have been willing to accept a flat, or anysort of two-pair back. The neighbors were somewhat moved by the anxietyof the strangers; but they were not so much moved as neighbors in Italywould have been. There was no eager and smiling sympathy in the littlecrowd that gathered to see what was going on; they were patient ofquestion and kind in their helpless response, but they were not gay. To aman they had not heard of Heine; even the owner of a sausage andblood-pudding shop across the way had not heard of him; the clerk of astationer-and-bookseller's next to the butcher's had heard of him, but hehad never heard that he lived in Konigstrasse; he never had heard wherehe lived in Hamburg. 

The pilgrims to the fraudulent shrine got back into their carriage, anddrove sadly away, instructing their driver with the rigidity which theirlimited German favored, not to let any house with a bust in its frontescape him. He promised, and took his course out through Konigstrasse, and suddenly they found themselves in a world of such eld and quaintnessthat they forgot Heine as completely as any of his countrymen had done. They were in steep and narrow streets, that crooked and turned with noapparent purpose of leading anywhere, among houses that looked down uponthem with an astonished stare from the leaden-sashed windows of theirtimber-laced gables. The facades with their lattices stretching in bandsquite across them, and with their steep roofs climbing high insuccessions of blinking dormers, were more richly mediaeval than anythingthe travellers had ever dreamt of before, and they feasted themselvesupon the unimagined picturesqueness with a leisurely minuteness whichbrought responsive gazers everywhere to the windows; windows were setajar; shop doors were darkened by curious figures from within, and thetraffic of the tortuous alleys was interrupted by their progress. Theycould not have said which delighted them more--the houses in theimmediate foreground, or the sharp high gables in the perspectives andthe background; but all were like the painted scenes of the stage, andthey had a pleasant difficulty in realizing that they were not persons insome romantic drama. 

The illusion remained with them and qualified the impression whichHamburg made by her much-trolleyed Bostonian effect; by the decorousactivity and Parisian architecture of her business streets; by theturmoil of her quays, and the innumerable masts and chimneys of hershipping. At the heart of all was that quaintness, that picturesquenessof the past, which embodied the spirit of the old Hanseatic city, andseemed the expression of the home-side of her history. The sense of thisgained strength from such slight study of her annals as they afterwardsmade, and assisted the digestion of some morsels of tough statistics. Inthe shadow of those Gothic houses the fact that Hamburg was one of thegreatest coffee marts and money marts of the world had a romanticglamour; and the fact that in the four years from 1870 till 1874 aquarter of a million emigrants sailed on her ships for the United Statesseemed to stretch a nerve of kindred feeling from those mediaeval streetsthrough the whole shabby length of Third Avenue. 

It was perhaps in this glamour, or this feeling of commercial solidarity, that March went to have a look at the Hamburg Bourse, in the beautifulnew Rathhaus. It was not undergoing repairs, it was too new for that; butit was in construction, and so it fulfilled the function of a publicedifice, in withholding its entire interest from the stranger. He couldnot get into the Senate Chamber; but the Bourse was free to him, and whenhe stepped within, it rose at him with a roar of voices and of feet likethe New York Stock Exchange. The spectacle was not so frantic; peoplewere not shaking their fists or fingers in each other's noses; but theywere all wild in the tamer German way, and he was glad to mount from theBourse to the poor little art gallery upstairs, and to shut out itsclamor. He was not so glad when he looked round on these, his first, examples of modern German art. The custodian led him gently about andsaid which things were for sale, and it made his heart ache to see howbad they were, and to think that, bad as they were, he could not buy anyof them. 

XXII. 

In the start from Cuxhaven the passengers had the irresponsible ease ofpeople ticketed through, and the steamship company had still the chargeof their baggage. But when the Marches left Hamburg for Leipsic (wherethey had decided to break the long pull to Carlsbad), all the anxietiesof European travel, dimly remembered from former European days, offeredthemselves for recognition. A porter vanished with their hand-baggagebefore they could note any trait in him for identification; other portersmade away with their trunks; and the interpreter who helped March buy histickets, with a vocabulary of strictly railroad English, had to help himfind the pieces in the baggage-room, curiously estranged in a mountain ofalien boxes. One official weighed them; another obliged him to pay asmuch in freight as for a third passenger, and gave him an illegible scrapof paper which recorded their number and destination. The interpreter andthe porters took their fees with a professional effect ofdissatisfaction, and he went to wait with his wife amidst the smoking andeating and drinking in the restaurant. They burst through with the restwhen the doors were opened to the train, and followed a glimpse of theporter with their hand-bags, as he ran down the platform, still bent uponescaping them, and brought him to bay at last in a car where he had gotvery good seats for them, and sank into their places, hot and humiliatedby their needless tumult. 

As they cooled, they recovered their self-respect, and renewed a youthfuljoy in some of the long-estranged facts. The road was rougher than theroads at home; but for much less money they had the comfort, without theunavailing splendor, of a Pullman in their second-class carriage. Mrs. March had expected to be used with the severity on the imperial railroadswhich she had failed to experience from the military on the Hamburgsidewalks, but nothing could be kindlier than the whole management towardher. Her fellow-travellers were not lavish of their rights, as Americansare; what they got, that they kept; and in the run from Hamburg toLeipsic she had several occasions to observe that no German, howeveryoung or robust, dreams of offering a better place, if he has one, to alady in grace to her sex or age; if they got into a carriage too late tosecure a forward-looking seat, she rode backward to the end of thatstage. But if they appealed to their fellow-travellers for informationabout changes, or stops, or any of the little facts that they wished tomake sure of, they were enlightened past possibility of error. At thepoint where they might have gone wrong the explanations were renewed witha thoughtfulness which showed that their anxieties had not beenforgotten. She said she could not see how any people could be both soselfish and so sweet, and her husband seized the advantage of sayingsomething offensive:

"You women are so pampered in America that you are astonished when youare treated in Europe like the mere human beings you are. "

She answered with unexpected reasonableness:

"Yes, there's something in that; but when the Germans have taught us howdespicable we are as women, why do they treat us so well as humanbeings?"

This was at ten o'clock, after she had ridden backward a long way, and atlast, within an hour of Leipsic, had got a seat confronting him. Thedarkness had now hidden the landscape, but the impression of its fewsimple elements lingered pleasantly in their sense: long levels, denselywooded with the precise, severely disciplined German forests, andcheckered with fields of grain and grass, soaking under the thin rainthat from time to time varied the thin sunshine. 

The villages and peasants' cottages were notably few; but there was hereand there a classic or a gothic villa, which, at one point, anEnglish-speaking young lady turned from her Tauchnitz novel to explain asthe seat of some country gentleman; the land was in large holdings, andthis accounted for the sparsity of villages and cottages. 

She then said that she was a German teacher of English, in Hamburg, andwas going home to Potsdam for a visit. She seemed like a German girl outof 'The Initials', and in return for this favor Mrs. March tried toinvest herself with some romantic interest as an American. She failed tomove the girl's fancy, even after she had bestowed on her an immensebunch of roses which the young German friend in Hamburg had sent to themjust before they left their hotel. She failed, later, on the same groundwith the pleasant-looking English woman who got into their carriage atMagdeburg, and talked over the 'London Illustrated News' with anEnglish-speaking Fraulein in her company; she readily accepted the factof Mrs. March's nationality, but found nothing wonderful in it, apparently; and when she left the train she left Mrs. March to recallwith fond regret the old days in Italy when she first came abroad, andcould make a whole carriage full of Italians break into ohs and ahs bysaying that she was an American, and telling how far she had come acrossthe sea. 

"Yes, " March assented, "but that was a great while ago, and Americanswere much rarer than they are now in Europe. The Italians are so muchmore sympathetic than the Germans and English, and they saw that youwanted to impress them. Heaven knows how little they cared! And then, youwere a very pretty young girl in those days; or at least I thought so. "

"Yes, " she sighed, "and now I'm a plain old woman. "

"Oh, not quite so bad as that. "

"Yes, I am! Do you think they would have cared more if it had been MissTriscoe?"

"Not so much as if it had been the pivotal girl. They would have foundher much more their ideal of the American woman; and even she would havehad to have been here thirty years ago. "

She laughed a little ruefully. "Well, at any rate, I should like to knowhow Miss Triscoe would have affected them. "

"I should much rather know what sort of life that English woman is livinghere with her German husband; I fancied she had married rank. I couldimagine how dull it must be in her little Saxon town, from the way sheclung to her Illustrated News, and explained the pictures of theroyalties to her friend. There is romance for you!"

They arrived at Leipsic fresh and cheerful after their five hours'journey, and as in a spell of their travelled youth they drove up throughthe academic old town, asleep under its dimly clouded sky, and silentexcept for the trolley-cars that prowled its streets with their felinepurr, and broke at times into a long, shrill caterwaul. A sense of thepast imparted itself to the well-known encounter with the portier and thehead waiter at the hotel door, to the payment of the driver, to theendeavor of the secretary to have them take the most expensive rooms inthe house, and to his compromise upon the next most, where they foundthemselves in great comfort, with electric lights and bells, and a quicksuccession of fee-taking call-boys in dress-coats too large for them. Thespell was deepened by the fact, which March kept at the bottom of hisconsciousness for the present, that one of their trunks was missing. Thislinked him more closely to the travel of other days, and he spent thenext forenoon in a telegraphic search for the estray, with emotionstinged by the melancholy of recollection, but in the security that sinceit was somewhere in the keeping of the state railway, it would be finallyrestored to him. 

XXIII. 

Their windows, as they saw in the morning, looked into a large square ofaristocratic physiognomy, and of a Parisian effect in architecture, whichafterwards proved characteristic of the town, if not quite socharacteristic as to justify the passion of Leipsic for calling itselfLittle Paris. The prevailing tone was of a gray tending to the paleyellow of the Tauchnitz editions with which the place is more familiarlyassociated in the minds of English-speaking travellers. It was rathermore sombre than it might have been if the weather had been fair; but aquiet rain was falling dreamily that morning, and the square was providedwith a fountain which continued to dribble in the rare moments when therain forgot itself. The place was better shaded than need be in thatsunless land by the German elms that look like ours and it wassufficiently stocked with German statues, that look like no others. Ithad a monument, too, of the sort with which German art has everywheredisfigured the kindly fatherland since the war with France. Thesemonuments, though they are so very ugly, have a sort of pathos as recordsof the only war in which Germany unaided has triumphed against a foreignfoe, but they are as tiresome as all such memorial pomps must be. It isnot for the victories of a people that any other people can care. Thewars come and go in blood and tears; but whether they are bad wars, orwhat are comically called good wars, they are of one effect in death andsorrow, and their fame is an offence to all men not concerned in them, till time has softened it to a memory

 "Of old, unhappy, far-off things, And battles long ago. "

It was for some such reason that while the Marches turned with instantsatiety from the swelling and strutting sculpture which celebrated theLeipsic heroes of the war of 1870, they had heart for those of the war of1813; and after their noonday dinner they drove willingly, in a pause ofthe rain, out between yellowing harvests of wheat and oats to the fieldwhere Napoleon was beaten by the Russians, Austrians and Prussians (italways took at least three nations to beat the little wretch) fourscoreyears before. Yet even there Mrs. March was really more concerned for thesparsity of corn-flowers in the grain, which in their modern character ofKaiserblumen she found strangely absent from their loyal function; andMarch was more taken with the notion of the little gardens which hisguide told him the citizens could have in the suburbs of Leipsic andenjoy at any trolley-car distance from their homes. He saw certain ofthese gardens in groups, divided by low, unenvious fences, and sometimesfurnished with summer-houses, where the tenant could take his pleasure inthe evening air, with his family. The guide said he had such a gardenhimself, at a rent of seven dollars a year, where he raised vegetablesand flowers, and spent his peaceful leisure; and March fancied that onthe simple domestic side of their life, which this fact gave him aglimpse of, the Germans were much more engaging than in their characterof victors over either the First or the Third Napoleon. But probably theywould not have agreed with him, and probably nations will go on makingthemselves cruel and tiresome till humanity at last prevails overnationality. 

He could have put the case to the guide himself; but though the guide wasimaginably liberated to a cosmopolitan conception of things by threeyears' service as waiter in English hotels, where he learned thelanguage, he might not have risen to this. He would have tried, for hewas a willing and kindly soul, though he was not a 'valet de place' byprofession. There seemed in fact but one of that useless and amusing race(which is everywhere falling into decay through the rivalry of theperfected Baedeker, ) left in Leipsic, and this one was engaged, so thatthe Marches had to devolve upon their ex-waiter, who was now the keeperof a small restaurant. He gladly abandoned his business to the care ofhis wife, in order to drive handsomely about in his best clothes, withstrangers who did not exact too much knowledge from him. In his zeal todo something he possessed himself of March's overcoat when theydismounted at their first gallery, and let fall from its pocket hisprophylactic flask of brandy, which broke with a loud crash on the marblefloor in the presence of several masterpieces, and perfumed the wholeplace. The masterpieces were some excellent works of Luke Kranach, whoseemed the only German painter worth looking at when there were any Dutchor Italian pictures near, but the travellers forgot the name and natureof the Kranachs, and remembered afterwards only the shattered fragmentsof the brandy-flask, just how they looked on the floor, and the fumes, how they smelt, that rose from the ruin. 

It might have been a warning protest of the veracities against what theywere doing; but the madness of sight-seeing, which spoils travel, was onthem, and they delivered themselves up to it as they used in theirignorant youth, though now they knew its futility so well. They sparedthemselves nothing that they had time for, that day, and they feltfalsely guilty for their omissions, as if they really had been duties toart and history which must be discharged, like obligations to one's makerand one's neighbor. 

They had a touch of genuine joy in the presence of the beautiful oldRathhaus, and they were sensible of something like a genuine emotion inpassing the famous and venerable university; the very air of Leipsic isredolent of printing and publication, which appealed to March in hisquality of editor, and they could not fail of an impression of the quietbeauty of the town, with its regular streets of houses breaking intosuburban villas of an American sort, and intersected with many canals, which in the intervals of the rain were eagerly navigated by pleasureboats, and contributed to the general picturesqueness by their frequentbridges, even during the drizzle. There seemed to be no churches to do, and as it was a Sunday, the galleries were so early closed against themthat they were making a virtue as well as a pleasure of the famous sceneof Napoleon's first great defeat. 

By a concert between their guide and driver their carriage drew up at thelittle inn by the road-side, which is also a museum stocked with relicsfrom the battle-field, and with objects of interest relating to it. Oldmuskets, old swords, old shoes and old coats, trumpets, drums, gun-carriages, wheels, helmets, cannon balls, grape-shot, and all themurderous rubbish which battles come to at last, with proclamations, autographs, caricatures and likenesses of Napoleon, and effigies of allthe other generals engaged, and miniatures and jewels of their womenkind, filled room after room, through which their owner vaunted his way, with aloud pounding voice and a bad breath. When he wished them to enjoy somegross British satire or clumsy German gibe at Bonaparte's expense, andput his face close to begin the laugh, he was something so terrible thatMarch left the place with a profound if not a reasoned regret that theFrench had not won the battle of Leipsic. He walked away musing pensivelyupon the traveller's inadequacy to the ethics of history when a breathcould so sway him against his convictions; but even after he had cleansedhis lungs with some deep respirations he found himself still aBonapartist in the presence of that stone on the rising ground whereNapoleon sat to watch the struggle on the vast plain, and see his empireslipping through his blood-stained fingers. It was with difficulty thathe could keep from revering the hat and coat which are sculptured on thestone, but it was well that he succeeded, for he could not make out thenor afterwards whether the habiliments represented were really Napoleon'sor not, and they might have turned out to be Barclay de Tolly's. 

While he stood trying to solve this question of clothes he was startledby the apparition of a man climbing the little slope from the oppositequarter, and advancing toward them. He wore the imperial crossed by thepointed mustache once so familiar to a world much the worse for them, andMarch had the shiver of a fine moment in which he fancied the ThirdNapoleon rising to view the scene where the First had looked his comingruin in the face. 

"Why, it's Miss Triscoe!" cried his wife, and before March had noticedthe approach of another figure, the elder and the younger lady had rushedupon each other, and encountered with a kiss. At the same time the visageof the last Emperor resolved itself into the face of General Triscoe, whogave March his hand in a more tempered greeting. 

The ladies began asking each other of their lives since their parting twodays before, and the men strolled a few paces away toward the distantprospect of Leipsic, which at that point silhouettes itself in a noblestretch of roofs and spires and towers against the horizon. 

General Triscoe seemed no better satisfied with Germany than he had beenon first stepping ashore at Cuxhaven. He might still have been in a poutwith his own country, but as yet he had not made up with any other; andhe said, "What a pity Napoleon didn't thrash the whole dunderheaded lot!His empire would have been a blessing to them, and they would have hadsome chance of being civilized under the French. All this unification ofnationalities is the great humbug of the century. Every stupid racethinks it's happy because it's united, and civilization has been set backa hundred years by the wars that were fought to bring the unions about;and more wars will have to be fought to keep them up. What a farce it is!What's become of the nationality of the Danes in Schleswig-Holstein, orthe French in the Rhine Provinces, or the Italians in Savoy?"

March had thought something like this himself, but to have it put byGeneral Triscoe made it offensive. "I don't know. Isn't it ratherquarrelling with the course of human events to oppose accomplished facts?The unifications were bound to be, just as the separations before themwere. And so far they have made for peace, in Europe at least, and peaceis civilization. Perhaps after a great many ages people will cometogether through their real interests, the human interests; but atpresent it seems as if nothing but a romantic sentiment of patriotism canunite them. By-and-by they may find that there is nothing in it. "

"Perhaps, " said the general, discontentedly. "I don't see much promise ofany kind in the future. "

"Well, I don't know. When you think of the solid militarism of Germany, you seem remanded to the most hopeless moment of the Roman Empire; youthink nothing can break such a force; but my guide says that even inLeipsic the Socialists outnumber all the other parties, and the army isthe great field of the Socialist propaganda. The army itself may beshaped into the means of democracy--even of peace. "

"You're very optimistic, " said Triscoe, curtly. "As I read the signs, weare not far from universal war. In less than a year we shall make thebreak ourselves in a war with Spain. " He looked very fierce as heprophesied, and he dotted March over with his staccato glances. 

"Well, I'll allow that if Tammany comes in this year, we shall have warwith Spain. You can't ask more than that, General Triscoe?"

Mrs. March and Miss Triscoe had not said a word of the 'battle ofLeipsic', or of the impersonal interests which it suggested to the men. For all these, they might still have been sitting in their steamer chairson the promenade of the Norumbia at a period which seemed now ofgeological remoteness. The girl accounted for not being in Dresden by herfather's having decided not to go through Berlin but to come by way ofLeipsic, which he thought they had better see; they had come withoutstopping in Hamburg. They had not enjoyed Leipsic much; it had rained thewhole day before, and they had not gone out. She asked when Mrs. Marchwas going on to Carlsbad, and Mrs. March answered, the next morning; herhusband wished to begin his cure at once. 

Then Miss Triscoe pensively wondered if Carlsbad would do her father anygood; and Mrs. March discreetly inquired General Triscoe's symptoms. 

"Oh, he hasn't any. But I know he can't be well--with his gloomyopinions. "

"They may come from his liver, " said Mrs. March. "Nearly everything ofthat kind does. I know that Mr. March has been terribly depressed attimes, and the doctor said it was nothing but his liver; and Carlsbad isthe great place for that, you know. "

"Perhaps I can get papa to run over some day, if he doesn't like Dresden. It isn't very far, is it?"

They referred to Mrs. March's Baedeker together, and found that it wasfive hours. 

"Yes, that is what I thought, " said Miss Triscoe, with a carelessnesswhich convinced Mrs. March she had looked up the fact already. 

"If you decide to come, you must let us get rooms for you at our hotel. We're going to Pupp's; most of the English and Americans go to the hotelson the Hill, but Pupp's is in the thick of it in the lower town; and it'svery gay, Mr. Kenby says; he's been there often. Mr. Burnamy is to getour rooms. "

"I don't suppose I can get papa to go, " said Miss Triscoe, so insincerelythat Mrs. March was sure she had talked over the different routes; toCarlsbad with Burnamy--probably on the way from Cuxhaven. She looked upfrom digging the point of her umbrella in the ground. "You didn't meethim here this morning?"

Mrs. March governed herself to a calm which she respected in asking, "HasMr. Burnamy been here?"

"He came on with Mr. And Mrs. Eltwin, when we did, and they all decidedto stop over a day. They left on the twelve-o'clock train to-day. "

Mrs. March perceived that the girl had decided not to let the factsbetray themselves by chance, and she treated them as of no significance. 

"No, we didn't see him, " she said, carelessly. 

The two men came walking slowly towards them, and Miss Triscoe said, "We're going to Dresden this evening, but I hope we shall meet somewhere, Mrs. March. "

"Oh, people never lose sight of each other in Europe; they can't; it's solittle!"

"Agatha, " said the girl's father, "Mr. March tells me that the museumover there is worth seeing. "

"Well, " the girl assented, and she took a winning leave of the Marches, and moved gracefully away with her father. 

"I should have thought it was Agnes, " said Mrs. March, following themwith her eyes before she turned upon her husband. "Did he tell youBurnamy had been here? Well, he has! He has just gone on to Carlsbad. Hemade, those poor old Eltwins stop over with him, so he could be withher. "

"Did she say that?"

"No, but of course he did. "

"Then it's all settled?"

"No, it isn't settled. It's at the most interesting point. "

"Well, don't read ahead. You always want to look at the last page. "

"You were trying to look at the last page yourself, " she retorted, andshe would have liked to punish him for his complex dishonesty toward theaffair; but upon the whole she kept her temper with him, and she made himagree that Miss Triscoe's getting her father to Carlsbad was only aquestion of time. 

They parted heart's-friends with their ineffectual guide, who wasaffectionately grateful for the few marks they gave him, at the hoteldoor; and they were in just the mood to hear men singing in a fartherroom when they went down to supper. The waiter, much distracted fromtheir own service by his duties to it, told them it was the breakfastparty of students which they had heard beginning there about noon. Therevellers had now been some six hours at table, and he said they mightnot rise before midnight; they had just got to the toasts, which wereapparently set to music. 

The students of right remained a vivid color in the impression of theuniversity town. They pervaded the place, and decorated it with theirfantastic personal taste in coats and trousers, as well as their corpscaps of green, white, red, and blue, but above all blue. They were noteasily distinguishable from the bicyclers who were holding one of thedull festivals of their kind in Leipsic that day, and perhaps they weresometimes both students and bicyclers. As bicyclers they kept about inthe rain, which they seemed not to mind; so far from being disheartened, they had spirits enough to take one another by the waist at times andwaltz in the square before the hotel. At one moment of the holiday somechiefs among them drove away in carriages; at supper a winner of prizessat covered with badges and medals; another who went by the hotelstreamed with ribbons; and an elderly man at his side was bespatteredwith small knots and ends of them, as if he had been in an explosion ofribbons somewhere. It seemed all to be as exciting for them, and it wasas tedious for the witnesses, as any gala of students and bicyclers athome. 

Mrs. March remained with an unrequited curiosity concerning theirdifferent colors and different caps, and she tried to make her husbandfind out what they severally meant; he pretended a superior interest inthe nature of a people who had such a passion for uniforms that they werenot content with its gratification in their immense army, but indulged itin every pleasure and employment of civil life. He estimated, perhaps notvery accurately, that only one man out of ten in Germany wore citizens'dress; and of all functionaries he found that the dogs of thewomen-and-dog teams alone had no distinctive dress; even the women hadtheir peasant costume. 

There was an industrial fair open at Leipsic which they went out of thecity to see after supper, along with a throng of Leipsickers, whom anhour's interval of fine weather tempted forth on the trolley; and withthe help of a little corporal, who took a fee for his service with theeagerness of a civilian, they got wheeled chairs, and renewed theirassociations with the great Chicago Fair in seeing the exposition fromthem. This was not, March said, quite the same as being drawn by awoman-and-dog team, which would have been the right means of doing aGerman fair; but it was something to have his chair pushed by a slenderyoung girl, whose stalwart brother applied his strength to the chair ofthe lighter traveller; and it was fit that the girl should reckon thecommon hire, while the man took the common tip. They made haste to leavethe useful aspects of the fair, and had themselves trundled away to theColonial Exhibit, where they vaguely expected something like theagreeable corruptions of the Midway Plaisance. The idea of her colonialprogress with which Germany is trying to affect the home-keepingimagination of her people was illustrated by an encampment of savagesfrom her Central-African possessions. They were getting their supper atthe moment the Marches saw them, and were crouching, half naked, aroundthe fires under the kettles, and shivering from the cold, but they werenot very characteristic of the imperial expansion, unless perhaps when anold man in a red blanket suddenly sprang up with a knife in his hand andbegan to chase a boy round the camp. The boy was lighter-footed, andeasily outran the sage, who tripped at times on his blanket. None of theother Central Africans seemed to care for the race, and without waitingfor the event, the American spectators ordered themselves trundled awayto another idle feature of the fair, where they hoped to amuse themselveswith the image of Old Leipsic. 

This was so faithfully studied from the past in its narrow streets andGothic houses that it was almost as picturesque as the present epoch inthe old streets of Hamburg. A drama had just begun to be represented on aplatform of the public square in front of a fourteenth-centurybeer-house, with people talking from the windows round, and revellers inthe costume of the period drinking beer and eating sausages at tables inthe open air. Their eating and drinking were genuine, and in the midst ofit a real rain began, to pour down upon them, without affecting them anymore than if they had been Germans of the nineteenth century. But itdrove the Americans to a shelter from which they could not see the play, and when it held up, they made their way back to their hotel. 

Their car was full of returning pleasurers, some of whom were happybeyond the sober wont of the fatherland. The conductor took a specialinterest in his tipsy passengers, trying to keep them in order, andgenially entreating them to be quiet when they were too obstreperous. From time to time he got some of them off, and then, when he remountedthe car, he appealed to the remaining passengers for their sympathy withan innocent smile, which the Americans, still strange to the unjoyousphysiognomy of the German Empire, failed to value at its rare worth. 

Before he slept that night March tried to assemble from the experiencesand impressions of the day some facts which he would not be ashamed of asa serious observer of life in Leipsic, and he remembered that their guidehad said house-rent was very low. He generalized from the guide's contentwith his fee that the Germans were not very rapacious; and he becamequite irrelevantly aware that in Germany no man's clothes fitted him, orseemed expected to fit him; that the women dressed somewhat better, andwere rather pretty sometimes, and that they had feet as large as the kindhearts of the Germans of every age and sex. He was able to note, rathermore freshly, that with all their kindness the Germans were a verynervous people, if not irritable, and at the least cause gave way to anagitation, which indeed quickly passed, but was violent while it lasted. Several times that day he had seen encounters between the portier andguests at the hotel which promised violence, but which ended peacefullyas soon as some simple question of train-time was solved. The encountersalways left the portier purple and perspiring, as any agitation must witha man so tight in his livery. He bemoaned himself after one of them asthe victim of an unhappy calling, in which he could take no exercise. "Itis a life of excitements, but not of movements, " he explained to March;and when he learned where he was going, he regretted that he could not goto Carlsbad too. "For sugar?" he asked, as if there were overmuch of itin his own make. 

March felt the tribute, but he had to say, "No; liver. "

"Ah!" said the portier, with the air of failing to get on common groundwith him. 

XXV. 

The next morning was so fine that it would have been a fine morning inAmerica. Its beauty was scarcely sullied, even subjectively, by thetelegram which the portier sent after the Marches from the hotel, sayingthat their missing trunk had not yet been found, and their spirits wereas light as the gay little clouds which blew about in the sky, when theirtrain drew out in the sunshine, brilliant on the charming landscape allthe way to Carlsbad. A fatherly 'traeger' had done his best to get themthe worst places in a non-smoking compartment, but had succeeded sopoorly that they were very comfortable, with no companions but a motherand daughter, who spoke German in soft low tones together. Theircompartment was pervaded by tobacco fumes from the smokers, but as thesewere twice as many as the non-smokers, it was only fair, and after Marchhad got a window open it did not matter, really. 

He asked leave of the strangers in his German, and they consented intheirs; but he could not master the secret of the window-catch, and theelder lady said in English, "Let me show you, " and came to his help. 

The occasion for explaining that they were Americans and accustomed todifferent car windows was so tempting that Mrs. March could not forbear, and the other ladies were affected as deeply as she could wish. Perhapsthey were the more affected because it presently appeared that they hadcousins in New York whom she knew of, and that they were acquainted withan American family that had passed the winter in Berlin. Life likes to dothese things handsomely, and it easily turned out that this was a familyof intimate friendship with the Marches; the names, familiarly spoken, abolished all strangeness between the travellers; and they entered into acomparison of tastes, opinions, and experiences, from which it seemedthat the objects and interests of cultivated people in Berlin were quitethe same as those of cultivated people in New York. Each of the partiesto the discovery disclaimed any superiority for their respectivecivilizations; they wished rather to ascribe a greater charm and virtueto the alien conditions; and they acquired such merit with one anotherthat when the German ladies got out of the train at Franzensbad, themother offered Mrs. March an ingenious folding footstool which she hadadmired. In fact, she left her with it clasped to her breast, and bowingspeechless toward the giver in a vain wish to express her gratitude. 

"That was very pretty of her, my dear, " said March. "You couldn't havedone that. "

"No, " she confessed; "I shouldn't have had the courage. The courage of myemotions, " she added, thoughtfully. 

"Ah, that's the difference! A Berliner could do it, and a Bostoniancouldn't. Do you think it so much better to have the courage of yourconvictions?"

"I don't know. It seems to me that I'm less and less certain ofeverything that I used to be sure of. "

He laughed, and then he said, "I was thinking how, on our weddingjourney, long ago, that Gray Sister at the Hotel Dieu in Quebec offeredyou a rose. "

"Well?"

"That was to your pretty youth. Now the gracious stranger gives you afolding stool. "

"To rest my poor old feet. Well, I would rather have it than a rose, now. "

"You bent toward her at just the slant you had when you took the flowerthat time; I noticed it. I didn't see that you looked so very different. To be sure the roses in your cheeks have turned into rosettes; butrosettes are very nice, and they're much more permanent; I prefer them;they will keep in any climate. "

She suffered his mockery with an appreciative sigh. "Yes, our agecaricatures our youth, doesn't it?"

"I don't think it gets much fun out of it, " he assented. 

"No; but it can't help it. I used to rebel against it when it firstbegan. I did enjoy being young. "

"You did, my dear, " he said, taking her hand tenderly; she withdrew it, because though she could bear his sympathy, her New England nature couldnot bear its expression. "And so did I; and we were both young a longtime. Travelling brings the past back, don't you think? There at thatrestaurant, where we stopped for dinner--"

"Yes, it was charming! Just as it used to be! With that white cloth, andthose tall shining bottles of wine, and the fruit in the centre, and thedinner in courses, and that young waiter who spoke English, and was sonice! I'm never going home; you may, if you like. "

"You bragged to those ladies about our dining-cars; and you said that ourrailroad restaurants were quite as good as the European. "

"I had to do that. But I knew better; they don't begin to be. "

"Perhaps not; but I've been thinking that travel is a good deal alikeeverywhere. It's the expression of the common civilization of the world. When I came out of that restaurant and ran the train down, and then foundthat it didn't start for fifteen minutes, I wasn't sure whether I was athome or abroad. And when we changed cars at Eger, and got into this trainwhich had been baking in the sun for us outside the station, I didn'tknow but I was back in the good old Fitchburg depot. To be sure, Wallenstein wasn't assassinated at Boston, but I forgot his murder atEger, and so that came to the same thing. It's these confounded fifty-oddyears. I used to recollect everything. "

He had got up and was looking out of the window at the landscape, whichhad not grown less amiable in growing rather more slovenly since they hadcrossed the Saxon bolder into Bohemia. All the morning and earlyafternoon they had run through lovely levels of harvest, where men werecradling the wheat and women were binding it into sheaves in the narrowfields between black spaces of forest. After they left Eger, there wassomething more picturesque and less thrifty in the farming among the lowhills which they gradually mounted to uplands, where they tasted amountain quality in the thin pure air. The railroad stations wereshabbier; there was an indefinable touch of something Southern in thescenery and the people. Lilies were rocking on the sluggish reaches ofthe streams, and where the current quickened, tall wheels were liftingwater for the fields in circles of brimming and spilling pockets. Alongthe embankments, where a new track was being laid, barefooted women wereat work with pick and spade and barrow, and little yellow-haired girlswere lugging large white-headed babies, and watching the train go by. Atan up grade where it slowed in the ascent he began to throw out to thechildren the pfennigs which had been left over from the passage inGermany, and he pleased himself with his bounty, till the questionwhether the children could spend the money forced itself upon him. He satdown feeling less like a good genius than a cruel magician who hadtricked them with false wealth; but he kept his remorse to himself, andtried to interest his wife in the difference of social and civic idealexpressed in the change of the inhibitory notices at the car windows, which in Germany had strongliest forbidden him to outlean himself, andnow in Austria entreated him not to outbow himself. She refused to sharein the speculation, or to debate the yet nicer problem involved by theplacarded prayer in the washroom to the Messrs. Travellers not to takeaway the soap; and suddenly he felt himself as tired as she looked, withthat sense of the futility of travel which lies in wait for every one whoprofits by travel. 

PG EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

 Bad wars, or what are comically called good wars Calm of those who have logic on their side Decided not to let the facts betray themselves by chance Explained perhaps too fully Futility of travel Humanity may at last prevail over nationality Impertinent prophecies of their enjoying it so much Less certain of everything that I used to be sure of Life of the ship, like the life of the sea: a sodden monotony Life was like the life at a sea-side hotel, but more monotonous Madness of sight-seeing, which spoils travel Night so bad that it was worse than no night at all Our age caricatures our youth Prices fixed by his remorse Recipes for dishes and diseases Reckless and culpable optimism Repeated the nothings they had said already She cares for him: that she was so cold shows that She could bear his sympathy, but not its expression Suffering under the drip-drip of his innocent egotism They were so near in age, though they were ten years apart Unfounded hope that sooner or later the weather would be fine Wilful sufferers Woman harnessed with a dog to a cart Wooded with the precise, severely disciplined German forests Work he was so fond of and so weary of

THEIR SILVER WEDDING JOURNEY

PART II. 

XXVI. 

They found Burnamy expecting them at the station in Carlsbad, and shescolded him like a mother for taking the trouble to meet them, while shekept back for the present any sign of knowing that he had staid over aday with the Triscoes in Leipsic. He was as affectionately glad to seeher and her husband as she could have wished, but she would have liked itbetter if he had owned up at once about Leipsic. He did not, and itseemed to her that he was holding her at arm's-length in his answersabout his employer. He would not say how he liked his work, or how heliked Mr. Stoller; he merely said that they were at Pupp's together, andthat he had got in a good day's work already; and since he would say nomore, she contented herself with that. 

The long drive from the station to the hotel was by streets that wounddown the hill-side like those of an Italian mountain town, between gaystuccoed houses, of Southern rather than of Northern architecture; andthe impression of a Latin country was heightened at a turn of the roadwhich brought into view a colossal crucifix planted against a curtain ofdark green foliage on the brow of one of the wooded heights thatsurrounded Carlsbad. When they reached the level of the Tepl, thehill-fed torrent that brawls through the little city under pretty bridgeswithin walls of solid masonry, they found themselves in almost the onlyvehicle on a brilliant promenade thronged with a cosmopolitan world. Germans in every manner of misfit; Polish Jews in long black gabardines, with tight corkscrew curls on their temples under their black velvetderbys; Austrian officers in tight corsets; Greek priests in flowingrobes and brimless high hats; Russians in caftans and Cossacks inAstrakhan caps, accented the more homogeneous masses of westernEuropeans, in which it would have been hard to say which were English, French or Italians. Among the vividly dressed ladies, some wereimaginably Parisian from their chic costumes, but they might easily havebeen Hungarians or Levantines of taste; some Americans, who might havepassed unknown in the perfection of their dress, gave their nationalityaway in the flat wooden tones of their voices, which made themselvesheard above the low hum of talk and the whisper of the innumerable feet. 

The omnibus worked its way at a slow walk among the promenaders going andcoming between the rows of pollard locusts on one side and the brightwalls of the houses on the other. Under the trees were tables, served bypretty bareheaded girls who ran to and from the restaurants across theway. On both sides flashed and glittered the little shops full of silver, glass, jewelry, terracotta figurines, wood-carvings, and all the idlefrippery of watering-place traffic: they suggested Paris, and theysuggested Saratoga, and then they were of Carlsbad and of no place elsein the world, as the crowd which might have been that of other cities atcertain moments could only have been of Carlsbad in its habitual effect. 

"Do you like it?" asked Burnamy, as if he owned the place, and Mrs. Marchsaw how simple-hearted he was in his reticence, after all. She was readyto bless him when they reached the hotel and found that his interest hadgot them the only rooms left in the house. This satisfied in her thepassion for size which is at the bottom of every American heart, andwhich perhaps above all else marks us the youngest of the peoples. Wepride ourselves on the bigness of our own things, but we are notungenerous, and when we go to Europe and find things bigger than ours, weare magnanimously happy in them. Pupp's, in its altogether different way, was larger than any hotel at Saratoga or at Niagara; and when Burnamytold her that it sometimes fed fifteen thousand people a day in theheight of the season, she was personally proud of it. 

She waited with him in the rotunda of the hotel, while the secretary ledMarch off to look at the rooms reserved for them, and Burnamy hospitablyturned the revolving octagonal case in the centre of the rotunda wherethe names of the guests were put up. They were of all nations, but therewere so many New Yorkers whose names ended in berg, and thal, and stern, and baum that she seemed to be gazing upon a cyclorama of the signs onBroadway. A large man of unmistakable American make, but with so littlethat was of New England or New York in his presence that she might not atonce have thought him American, lounged toward them with a quilltoothpick in the corner of his mouth. He had a jealous blue eye, intowhich he seemed trying to put a friendly light; his straight mouthstretched into an involuntary smile above his tawny chin-beard, and hewore his soft hat so far back from his high forehead (it showed to thecrown when he took his hat off) that he had the effect of beinguncovered. 

At his approach Burnamy turned, and with a flush said: "Oh! Let meintroduce Mr. Stoller, Mrs. March. "

Stoller took his toothpick out of his mouth and bowed; then he seemed toremember, and took off his hat. "You see Jews enough, here to make youfeel at home?" he asked; and he added: "Well, we got some of 'em inChicago, too, I guess. This young man"--he twisted his head towardBurnamy--"found you easy enough?"

"It was very good of him to meet us, " Mrs. March began. "We didn'texpect--"

"Oh, that's all right, " said Stoller, putting his toothpick back, and hishat on. "We'd got through for the day; my doctor won't let me work all Iwant to, here. Your husband's going to take the cure, they tell me. Well, he wants to go to a good doctor, first. You can't go and drink thesewaters hit or miss. I found that out before I came. "

"Oh, no!" said Mrs. March, and she wished to explain how they had beenadvised; but he said to Burnamy:

"I sha'n't want you again till ten to-morrow morning. Don't let meinterrupt you, " he added patronizingly to Mrs. March. He put his hand uptoward his hat, and sauntered away out of the door. 

Burnamy did not speak; and she only asked at last, to relieve thesilence, "Is Mr. Stoller an American?"

"Why, I suppose so, " he answered, with an uneasy laugh. "His people wereGerman emigrants who settled in Southern Indiana. That makes him as muchAmerican as any of us, doesn't it?"

Burnamy spoke with his mind on his French-Canadian grandfather, who hadcome down through Detroit, when their name was Bonami; but Mrs. Marchanswered from her eight generations of New England ancestry. "Oh, for theWest, yes, perhaps, " and they neither of them said anything more aboutStoller. 

In their room, where she found March waiting for her amidst theirarriving baggage, she was so full of her pent-up opinions of Burnamy'spatron that she, would scarcely speak of the view from their windows ofthe wooded hills up and down the Tepl. "Yes, yes; very nice, and I know Ishall enjoy it ever so much. But I don't know what you will think of thatpoor young Burnamy!"

"Why, what's happened to him?"

"Happened? Stoller's happened. "

"Oh, have you seen him, already? Well?"

"Well, if you had been going to pick out that type of man, you'd haverejected him, because you'd have said he was too pat. He's like an actormade up for a Western millionaire. Do you remember that American in'L'Etranger' which Bernhardt did in Boston when she first came? He, looksexactly like that, and he has the worst manners. He stood talking to mewith his hat on, and a toothpick in his mouth; and he made me feel as ifhe had bought me, along with Burnamy, and had paid too much. If you don'tgive him a setting down, Basil, I shall never speak to you; that's all. I'm sure Burnamy is in some trouble with him; he's got some sort of holdupon him; what it could be in such a short time, I can't imagine; but ifever a man seemed to be, in a man's power, he does, in his!

"Now, " said March, "your pronouns have got so far beyond me that I thinkwe'd better let it all go till after supper; perhaps I shall see Stollermyself by that time. "

She had been deeply stirred by her encounter with Stoller, but sheentered with impartial intensity into the fact that the elevator atPupp's had the characteristic of always coming up and never going downwith passengers. It was locked into its closet with a solid door, andthere was no bell to summon it, or any place to take it except on theground-floor; but the stairs by which she could descend were abundant andstately; and on one landing there was the lithograph of one of thelargest and ugliest hotels in New York; how ugly it was, she said sheshould never have known if she had not seen it there. 

The dining-room was divided into the grand saloon, where they supped amidrococo sculptures and frescoes, and the glazed veranda opening by vastwindows on a spread of tables without, which were already filling up forthe evening concert. Around them at the different tables there weregroups of faces and figures fascinating in their strangeness, with thatdistinction which abashes our American level in the presence of Europeaninequality. 

"How simple and unimpressive we are, Basil, " she said, "beside all thesepeople! I used to feel it in Europe when I was young, and now I'm certainthat we must seem like two faded-in old village photographs. We don'teven look intellectual! I hope we look good. "

"I know I do, " said March. The waiter went for their supper, and theyjoined in guessing the different nationalities in the room. A Frenchparty was easy enough; a Spanish mother and daughter were not difficult, though whether they were not South-American remained uncertain; twoelderly maiden ladies were unmistakably of central Massachusetts, andwere obviously of a book-club culture that had left no leaf unturned;some Triestines gave themselves away by their Venetian accent; but alarge group at a farther table were unassignable in the strange languagewhich they clattered loudly together, with bursts of laughter. They werea family party of old and young, they were having a good time, with afreedom which she called baronial; the ladies wore white satin, or blacklace, but the men were in sack-coats; she chose to attribute them, for noreason but their outlandishness, to Transylvania. March pretended toprefer a table full of Germans, who were unmistakably bourgeois, and yetof intellectual effect. He chose as his favorite a middle-aged man oflearned aspect, and they both decided to think of him as the HerrProfessor, but they did not imagine how perfectly the title fitted himtill he drew a long comb from his waistcoat pocket and combed his hairand beard with it above the table. 

The wine wrought with the Transylvanians, and they all jargoned togetherat once, and laughed at the jokes passing among them. One old gentlemanhad a peculiar fascination from the infantile innocence of his gums whenhe threw his head back to laugh, and showed an upper jaw toothless exceptfor two incisors, standing guard over the chasm between. Suddenly hechoked, coughed to relieve himself, hawked, held his napkin up beforehim, and--

"Noblesse oblige, " said March, with the tone of irony which he reservedfor his wife's preoccupations with aristocracies of all sorts. "I think Iprefer my Hair Professor, bourgeois, as he is. "

The ladies attributively of central Massachusetts had risen from theirtable, and were making for the door without having paid for their supper. The head waiter ran after them; with a real delicacy for their mistake heexplained that though in most places the meals were charged in the bill, it was the custom in Carlsbad to pay for them at the table; one could seethat he was making their error a pleasant adventure to them which theycould laugh over together, and write home about without a pang. 

"And I, " said Mrs. March, shamelessly abandoning the party of thearistocracy, "prefer the manners of the lower classes. "

"Oh, yes, " he admitted. "The only manners we have at home are black ones. But you mustn't lose courage. Perhaps the nobility are not always sobaronial. "

"I don't know whether we have manners at home, " she said, "and I don'tbelieve I care. At least we have decencies. "

"Don't be a jingo, " said her husband. 

XXVII. 

Though Stoller had formally discharged Burnamy from duty for the day, hewas not so full of resources in himself, and he had not so general anacquaintance in the hotel but he was glad to have the young fellow makeup to him in the reading-room, that night. He laid down a New York paperten days old in despair of having left any American news in it, andpushed several continental Anglo-American papers aside with his elbow, ashe gave a contemptuous glance at the foreign journals, in Bohemian, Hungarian, German, French, and Italian, which littered the large table. 

"I wonder, " he said, "how long it'll take'em, over here, to catch on toour way of having pictures?"

Burnamy had come to his newspaper work since illustrated journalism wasestablished, and he had never had any shock from it at home, but sosensitive is youth to environment that, after four days in Europe, theNew York paper Stoller had laid down was already hideous to him. From thepolitic side of his nature, however, he temporized with Stoller'spreference. "I suppose it will be some time yet. "

"I wish, " said Stoller, with a savage disregard of expressed sequencesand relevancies, "I could ha' got some pictures to send home with thatletter this afternoon: something to show how they do things here, and bea kind of object-lesson. " This term had come up in a recent campaign whensome employers, by shutting down their works, were showing theiremployees what would happen if the employees voted their politicalopinions into effect, and Stoller had then mastered its meaning and wasfond of using it. "I'd like 'em to see the woods around here, that thecity owns, and the springs, and the donkey-carts, and the theatre, andeverything, and give 'em some practical ideas. "

Burnamy made an uneasy movement. 

"I'd 'a' liked to put 'em alongside of some of our improvements, and showhow a town can be carried on when it's managed on business principles. "

"Why didn't you think of it?"

"Really, I don't know, " said Burnamy, with a touch of impatience. 

They had not met the evening before on the best of terms. Stoller hadexpected Burnamy twenty-four hours earlier, and had shown his displeasurewith him for loitering a day at Leipsic which he might have spent atCarlsbad; and Burnamy had been unsatisfactory in accounting for thedelay. But he had taken hold so promptly and so intelligently that byworking far into the night, and through the whole forenoon, he had gotStoller's crude mass of notes into shape, and had sent off in time forthe first steamer the letter which was to appear over the proprietor'sname in his paper. It was a sort of rough but very full study of theCarlsbad city government, the methods of taxation, the municipalownership of the springs and the lands, and the public control ineverything. It condemned the aristocratic constitution of themunicipality, but it charged heavily in favor of the purity, beneficence, and wisdom of the administration, under which there was no poverty and noidleness, and which was managed like any large business. 

Stoller had sulkily recurred to his displeasure, once or twice, andBurnamy suffered it submissively until now. But now, at the change inBurnamy's tone, he changed his manner a little. 

"Seen your friends since supper?" he asked. 

"Only a moment. They are rather tired, and they've gone to bed. "

That the fellow that edits that book you write for?"

"Yes; he owns it, too. "

The notion of any sort of ownership moved Stoller's respect, and he askedmore deferentially, "Makin' a good thing out of it?"

"A living, I suppose. Some of the high-class weeklies feel thecompetition of the ten-cent monthlies. But 'Every Other Week' is aboutthe best thing we've got in the literary way, and I guess it's holdingits own. "

"Have to, to let the editor come to Carlsbad, " Stoller said, with areturn to the sourness of his earlier mood. "I don't know as I care muchfor his looks; I seen him when he came in with you. No snap to him. " Heclicked shut the penknife he had been paring his nails with, and startedup with the abruptness which marked all his motions, mental and physical;as he walked heavily out of the room he said, without looking at Burnamy, "You want to be ready by half past ten at the latest. "

Stoller's father and mother were poor emigrants who made their way to theWest with the instinct for sordid prosperity native to their race andclass; and they set up a small butcher shop in the little Indiana townwhere their son was born, and throve in it from the start. He couldremember his mother helping his father make the sausage and head-cheeseand pickle the pigs' feet, which they took turns in selling at as great aprice as they could extort from the townspeople. She was a good andtender mother, and when her little Yawcup, as the boys called Jacob inmimicry after her, had grown to the school-going age, she taught him tofight the Americans, who stoned him when he came out of his gate, andmobbed his home-coming; and mocked and tormented him at play-time tillthey wore themselves into a kindlier mind toward him through theexhaustion of their invention. No one, so far as the gloomy, stocky, rather dense little boy could make out, ever interfered in his behalf;and he grew up in bitter shame for his German origin, which entailed uponhim the hard fate of being Dutch among the Americans. He hated his nativespeech so much that he cried when he was forced to use it with his fatherand mother at home; he furiously denied it with the boys who proposed toparley with him in it on such terms as "Nix come arouce in de Dytchman'shouse. " He disused it so thoroughly that after his father took him out ofschool, when he was old enough to help in the shop, he could not get backto it. He regarded his father's business as part of his nationaldisgrace, and at the cost of leaving his home he broke away from it, andinformally apprenticed himself to the village blacksmith and wagon-maker. When it came to his setting up for himself in the business he had chosen, he had no help from his father, who had gone on adding dollar to dollartill he was one of the richest men in the place. 

Jacob prospered too; his old playmates, who had used him so cruelly, hadmany of them come to like him; but as a Dutchman they never dreamt ofasking him to their houses when they were young people, any more thanwhen they were children. He was long deeply in love with an American girlwhom he had never spoken to, and the dream of his life was to marry anAmerican. He ended by marrying the daughter of Pferd the brewer, who hadbeen at an American school in Indianapolis, and had come home asfragilely and nasally American as anybody. She made him a good, sickly, fretful wife; and bore him five children, of whom two survived, with novisible taint of their German origin. 

In the mean time Jacob's father had died and left his money to his son, with the understanding that he was to provide for his mother, who wouldgladly have given every cent to him and been no burden to him, if shecould. He took her home, and cared tenderly for her as long as she lived;and she meekly did her best to abolish herself in a household trying sohard to be American. She could not help her native accent, but she keptsilence when her son's wife had company; and when her eldestgranddaughter began very early to have American callers, she went out ofthe room; they would not have noticed her if she had staid. 

Before this Jacob had come forward publicly in proportion to hisfinancial importance in the community. He first commended himself to theBetter Element by crushing out a strike in his Buggy Works, which werenow the largest business interest of the place; and he rose on a wave ofmunicipal reform to such a height of favor with the respectable classesthat he was elected on a citizens' ticket to the Legislature. In thereaction which followed he was barely defeated for Congress, and wastalked of as a dark horse who might be put up for the governorship someday; but those who knew him best predicted that he would not get far inpolitics, where his bull-headed business ways would bring him to ruinsooner or later; they said, "You can't swing a bolt like you can astrike. "

When his mother died, he surprised his old neighbors by going to live inChicago, though he kept his works in the place where he and they hadgrown up together. His wife died shortly after, and within four years helost his three eldest children; his son, it was said, had begun to gowrong first. But the rumor of his increasing wealth drifted back fromChicago; he was heard of in different enterprises and speculations; atlast it was said that he had bought a newspaper, and then his boyhoodfriends decided that Jake was going into politics again. 

In the wider horizons and opener atmosphere of the great city he came tounderstand better that to be an American in all respects was not thebest. His mounting sense of importance began to be retroactive in thedirection of his ancestral home; he wrote back to the little town nearWurzburg which his people had come from, and found that he had relativesstill living there, some of whom had become people of substance; andabout the time his health gave way from life-long gluttony, and he wasordered to Carlsbad, he had pretty much made up his mind to take hisyounger daughters and put them in school for a year or two in Wurzburg, for a little discipline if not education. He had now left them there, tolearn the language, which he had forgotten with such heart-burning andshame, and music, for which they had some taste. 

The twins loudly lamented their fate, and they parted from their fatherwith open threats of running away; and in his heart he did not altogetherblame them. He came away from Wurzburg raging at the disrespect for hismoney and his standing in business which had brought him a more gallinghumiliation there than anything he had suffered in his boyhood at DesVaches. It intensified him in his dear-bought Americanism to the point ofwishing to commit lese majesty in the teeth of some local dignitaries whohad snubbed him, and who seemed to enjoy putting our eagle to shame inhis person; there was something like the bird of his step-country inStoller's pale eyes and huge beak. 

XXVIII. 

March sat with a company of other patients in the anteroom of the doctor, and when it came his turn to be prodded and kneaded, he was ashamed atbeing told he was not so bad a case as he had dreaded. The doctor wroteout a careful dietary for him, with a prescription of a certain number ofglasses of water at a certain spring and a certain number of baths, and arule for the walks he was to take before and after eating; then thedoctor patted him on the shoulder and pushed him caressingly out of hisinner office. It was too late to begin his treatment that day, but hewent with his wife to buy a cup, with a strap for hanging it over hisshoulder, and he put it on so as to be an invalid with the others atonce; he came near forgetting the small napkin of Turkish towelling whichthey stuffed into their cups, but happily the shopman called him back intime to sell it to him. 

At five the next morning he rose, and on his way to the street exchangedwith the servants cleaning the hotel stairs the first of the gloomy'Guten Morgens' which usher in the day at Carlsbad. They cannot be sofinally hopeless as they sound; they are probably expressive only of thepopular despair of getting through with them before night; but Marchheard the salutations sorrowfully groaned out on every hand as he joinedthe straggling current of invalids which swelled on the way past thesilent shops and cafes in the Alte Wiese, till it filled the street, andpoured its thousands upon the promenade before the classic colonnade ofthe Muhlbrunn. On the other bank of the Tepl the Sprudel flings itssteaming waters by irregular impulses into the air under a pavilion ofiron and glass; but the Muhlbrunn is the source of most resort. There isan instrumental concert somewhere in Carlsbad from early rising tillbedtime; and now at the Muhlbrunn there was an orchestra already playing;and under the pillared porch, as well as before it, the multitudeshuffled up and down, draining their cups by slow sips, and then takingeach his place in the interminable line moving on to replenish them atthe spring. 

A picturesque majority of Polish Jews, whom some vice of their climate issaid peculiarly to fit for the healing effects of Carlsbad, most took hiseye in their long gabardines of rusty black and their derby hats of plushor velvet, with their corkscrew curls coming down before their ears. Theywere old and young, they were grizzled and red and black, but they seemedall well-to-do; and what impresses one first and last at Carlsbad is thatits waters are mainly for the healing of the rich. After the Polish Jews, the Greek priests of Russian race were the most striking figures. Therewere types of Latin ecclesiastics, who were striking in their way too;and the uniforms of certain Austrian officers and soldiers brightened thepicture. Here and there a southern face, Italian or Spanish or Levantine, looked passionately out of the mass of dull German visages; for atCarlsbad the Germans, more than any other gentile nation, are to thefore. Their misfits, their absence of style, imparted the prevalenteffect; though now and then among the women a Hungarian, or Pole, orParisian, or American, relieved the eye which seeks beauty and gracerather than the domestic virtues. There were certain faces, types ofdiscomfort and disease, which appealed from the beginning to the end. Ayoung Austrian, yellow as gold, and a livid South-American, were of alasting fascination to March. 

What most troubled him, in his scrutiny of the crowd, was the difficultyof assigning people to their respective nations, and he accused his yearsof having dulled his perceptions; but perhaps it was from their longdisuse in his homogeneous American world. The Americans themselves fusedwith the European races who were often so hard to make out; hisfellow-citizens would not be identified till their bad voices gave themaway; he thought the women's voices the worst. 

At the springs, a line of young girls with a steady mechanical actiondipped the cups into the steaming source, and passed them impersonally upto their owners. With the patients at the Muhlbrunn it was often ahalf-hour before one's turn came, and at all a strict etiquette forbadeany attempt to anticipate it. The water was merely warm and flat, andafter the first repulsion one could forget it. March formed a childishhabit of counting ten between the sips, and of finishing the cup with agulp which ended it quickly; he varied his walks between cups by goingsometimes to a bridge at the end of the colonnade where a group ofTriestines were talking Venetian, and sometimes to the little Park beyondthe Kurhaus, where some old women were sweeping up from the close swardthe yellow leaves which the trees had untidily dropped overnight. Heliked to sit there and look at the city beyond the Tepl, where it climbedthe wooded heights in terraces till it lost its houses in the skirts andfolds of the forest. Most mornings it rained, quietly, absent-mindedly, and this, with the chili in the air, deepened a pleasant illusion ofQuebec offered by the upper town across the stream; but there were sunnymornings when the mountains shone softly through a lustrous mist, and theair was almost warm. 

Once in his walk he found himself the companion of Burnamy's employer, whom he had sometimes noted in the line at the Muhlbrunn, waiting histurn, cup in hand, with a face of sullen impatience. Stoller explainedthat though you could have the water brought to you at your hotel, hechose to go to the spring for the sake of the air; it was something youhad got to live through; before he had that young Burnamy to help him hedid not know what to do with his time, but now, every minute he was noteating or sleeping he was working; his cure did not oblige him to walkmuch. He examined March, with a certain mixture of respect and contempt, upon the nature of the literary life, and how it differed from the lifeof a journalist. He asked if he thought Burnamy would amount to anythingas a literary man; he so far assented to March's faith in him as to say, "He's smart. " He told of leaving his daughters in school at Wurzburg; andupon the whole he moved March with a sense of his pathetic lonelinesswithout moving his liking, as he passed lumberingly on, dangling his cup. 

March gave his own cup to the little maid at his spring, and while shegave it to a second, who dipped it and handed it to a third for itsreturn to him, he heard an unmistakable fellow-countryman saying good-, morning to them all in English. "Are you going to teach them UnitedStates?" he asked of a face with which he knew such an appeal would notfail. 

"Well, " the man admitted, "I try to teach them that much. They like it. You are an American? I am glad of it. I have 'most lost the use of mylungs, here. I'm a great talker, and I talk to my wife till she's aboutdead; then I'm out of it for the rest of the day; I can't speak German. "

His manner was the free, friendly manner of the West. He must be thatsort of untravelled American whom March had so seldom met, but he wasafraid to ask him if this was his first time at Carlsbad, lest it shouldprove the third or fourth. "Are you taking the cure?" he asked instead. 

"Oh, no. My wife is. She'll be along directly; I come down here and drinkthe waters to encourage her; doctor said to. That gets me in for thediet, too. I've e't more cooked fruit since I been here than I ever didin my life before. Prunes? My Lord, I'm full o' prunes! Well, it does megood to see an American, to know him. I couldn't 'a' told you, it youhadn't have spoken. "

"Well, " said March, "I shouldn't have been so sure of you, either, byyour looks. "

"Yes, we can't always tell ourselves from these Dutch. But they know us, and they don't want us, except just for one thing, and that's our money. I tell you, the Americans are the chumps over here. Soon's they got allour money, or think they have, they say, 'Here, you Americans, this is mycountry; you get off;' and we got to get. Ever been over before?"

"A great while ago; so long that I can hardly believe it. "

"It's my first time. My name's Otterson: I'm from out in Iowa. "

March gave him his name, and added that he was from New York. 

"Yes. I thought you was Eastern. But that wasn't an Eastern man you wasjust with?"

"No; he's from Chicago. He's a Mr. Stoller. "

"Not the buggy man?"

"I believe he makes buggies. "

"Well, you do meet everybody here. " The Iowan was silent for a moment, asif, hushed by the weighty thought. "I wish my wife could have seen him. Ijust want her to see the man that made our buggy. I don't know what'skeeping her, this morning, " he added, apologetically. "Look at thatfellow, will you, tryin' to get away from those women!" A young officerwas doing his best to take leave of two ladies, who seemed to be motherand daughter; they detained him by their united arts, and clung to himwith caressing words and looks. He was red in the face with his politestruggles when he broke from them at last. "How they do hang on to a man, over here!" the Iowa man continued. "And the Americans are as bad as any. Why, there's one ratty little Englishman up at our place, and our girlsjust swarm after him; their mothers are worse. Well, it's so, Jenny, " hesaid to the lady who had joined them and whom March turned round to seewhen he spoke to her. "If I wanted a foreigner I should go in for a man. And these officers! Put their mustaches up at night in curl-papers, theytell me. Introduce you to Mrs. Otterson, Mr. March. Well, had your firstglass, yet, Jenny? I'm just going for my second tumbler. "

He took his wife back to the spring, and began to tell her about Stoller;she made no sign of caring for him; and March felt inculpated. Sherelented a little toward him as they drank together; when he said he mustbe going to breakfast with his wife, she asked where he breakfasted, andsaid, "Why, we go to the Posthof, too. " He answered that then they shouldbe sure some time to meet there; he did not venture further; he reflectedthat Mrs. March had her reluctances too; she distrusted people who hadamused or interested him before she met them. 

XXIX. 

Burnamy had found the Posthof for them, as he had found most of the otheragreeable things in Carlsbad, which he brought to their knowledge one byone, with such forethought that March said he hoped he should be caredfor in his declining years as an editor rather than as a father; therewas no tenderness like a young contributor's. 

Many people from the hotels on the hill found at Pupp's just the time andspace between their last cup of water and their first cup of coffee whichare prescribed at Carlsbad; but the Marches were aware somehow from thebeginning that Pupp's had not the hold upon the world at breakfast whichit had at the mid-day dinner, or at supper on the evenings when theconcert was there. Still it was amusing, and they were patient ofBurnamy's delay till he could get a morning off from Stoller and go withthem to the Posthof. He met Mrs. March in the reading-room, where Marchwas to join them on his way from the springs with his bag of bread. Theearlier usage of buying the delicate pink slices of Westphalia ham, whichform the chief motive of a Carlsbad breakfast, at a certain shop in thetown, and carrying them to the cafe with you, is no longer of suchbinding force as the custom of getting your bread at the Swiss bakery. You choose it yourself at the counter, which begins to be crowded by halfpast seven, and when you have collected the prescribed loaves into thebasket of metallic filigree given you by one of the baker's maids, sheputs it into a tissue-paper bag of a gay red color, and you join theother invalids streaming away from the bakery, their paper bags making afestive rustling as they go. 

Two roads lead out of the town into the lovely meadow-lands, a good mileup the brawling Tepl, before they join on the right side of the torrent, where the Posthof lurks nestled under trees whose boughs let the sun andrain impartially through upon its army of little tables. By this time theslow omnibus plying between Carlsbad and some villages in the valleybeyond has crossed from the left bank to the right, and keeps on pasthalf a dozen other cafes, where patients whose prescriptions marshal thembeyond the Posthof drop off by the dozens and scores. 

The road on the left bank of the Tepl is wild and overhung at points withwooded steeps, when it leaves the town; but on the right it is borderedwith shops and restaurants a great part of its length. In leafy nooksbetween these, uphill walks begin their climb of the mountains, from thefoot of votive shrines set round with tablets commemorating in German, French, Russian, Hebrew, Magyar and Czech, the cure of high-well-borns ofall those races and languages. Booths glittering with the lapidary's workin the cheaper gems, or full of the ingenious figures of the toy-makers, alternate with the shrines and the cafes on the way to the Posthof, andwith their shoulders against the overhanging cliff, spread for thepassing crowd a lure of Viennese jewelry in garnets, opals, amethysts, and the like, and of such Bohemian playthings as carrot-eating rabbits, worsted-working cats, dancing-bears, and peacocks that strut about thefeet of the passers and expand their iridescent tails in mimic pride. 

Burnamy got his charges with difficulty by the shrines in which they feltthe far-reflected charm of the crucifixes of the white-hot Italianhighways of their early travel, and by the toyshops where they had amechanical, out-dated impulse to get something for the children, endingin a pang for the fact that they were children no longer. He waitedpolitely while Mrs. March made up her mind that she would not buy anylaces of the motherly old women who showed them under pent-roofs onway-side tables; and he waited patiently at the gate of theflower-gardens beyond the shops where March bought lavishly of sweetpeasefrom the businesslike flower-woman, and feigned a grateful joy in herbecause she knew no English, and gave him a chance of speaking hisGerman. 

"You'll find, " he said, as they crossed the road again, "that it's wellto trifle a good deal; it makes the time pass. I should still be laggingalong in my thirties if it hadn't been for fooling, and here I am well onin my fifties, and Mrs. March is younger than ever. "

They were at the gate of the garden and grounds of the cafe at last, anda turn of the path brought them to the prospect of its tables, under thetrees, between the two long glazed galleries where the breakfasters takerefuge at other tables when it rains; it rains nearly always, and thetrunks of the trees are as green with damp as if painted; but thatmorning the sun was shining. At the verge of the open space a group ofpretty serving-maids, each with her name on a silver band pinned upon herbreast, met them and bade them a 'Guten Morgen' of almost cheerful note, but gave way, to an eager little smiling blonde, who came pushing downthe path at sight of Burnamy, and claimed him for her own. 

"Ah, Lili! We want an extra good table, this morning. These are someAmerican Excellencies, and you must do your best for them. "

"Oh, yes, " the girl answered in English, after a radiant salutation ofthe Marches; "I get you one. "

"You are a little more formerly, to-day, and I didn't had one already. "

She ran among the tables along the edge of the western edge of thegallery, and was far beyond hearing his protest that he was not earlierthan usual when she beckoned him to the table she had found. She hadcrowded it in between two belonging to other girls, and by the time herbreakfasters came up she was ready for their order, with the poutingpretence that the girls always tried to rob her of the best places. Burnamy explained proudly, when she went, that none of the other girlsever got an advantage of her; she had more custom than any three of them, and she had hired a man to help her carry her orders. The girls were allfrom the neighboring villages, he said, and they lived at home in thewinter on their summer tips; their wages were nothing, or less, forsometimes they paid for their places. 

"What a mass of information!" said March. "How did you come by it?"

"Newspaper habit of interviewing the universe. "

"It's not a bad habit, if one doesn't carry it too far. How did Lililearn her English?"

"She takes lessons in the winter. She's a perfect little electric motor. I don't believe any Yankee girl could equal her. "

"She would expect to marry a millionaire if she did. What astonishes oneover here is to see how contentedly people prosper along on their ownlevel. And the women do twice the work of the men without expecting toequal them in any other way. At Pupp's, if we go to one end of theout-door restaurant, it takes three men to wait on us: one to bring ourcoffee or tea, another to bring our bread and meat, and another to makeout our bill, and I have to tip all three of them. If we go to the otherend, one girl serves us, and I have to give only one fee; I make it lessthan the least I give any three of the men waiters. "

"You ought to be ashamed of that, " said his wife. 

"I'm not. I'm simply proud of your sex, my dear. "

"Women do nearly everything, here, " said Burnamy, impartially. "Theybuilt that big new Kaiserbad building: mixed the mortar, carried thehods, and laid the stone. "

"That makes me prouder of the sex than ever. But come, Mr. Burnamy! Isn'tthere anybody of polite interest that you know of in this crowd?"

"Well, I can't say, " Burnamy hesitated. 

The breakfasters had been thronging into the grove and the galleries; thetables were already filled, and men were bringing other tables on theirheads, and making places for them, with entreaties for pardon everywhere;the proprietor was anxiously directing them; the pretty serving-girlswere running to and from the kitchen in a building apart with shrill, sweet promises of haste. The morning sun fell broken through the leaveson the gay hats and dresses of the ladies, and dappled the figures of themen with harlequin patches of light and shade. A tall woman, with a sortof sharpened beauty, and an artificial permanency of tint in her cheeksand yellow hair, came trailing herself up the sun-shot path, and found, with hardy insistence upon the publicity, places for the surly-looking, down-faced young man behind her, and for her maid and her black poodle;the dog was like the black poodle out of Faust. Burnamy had heard herhistory; in fact, he had already roughed out a poem on it, which hecalled Europa, not after the old fable, but because it seemed to him thatshe expressed Europe, on one side of its civilization, and had anauthorized place in its order, as she would not have had in ours. She waswhere she was by a toleration of certain social facts which correspondsin Europe to our reverence for the vested interests. In her historythere, had been officers and bankers; even foreign dignitaries; now therewas this sullen young fellow . . . . Burnamy had wondered if it would doto offer his poem to March, but the presence of the original abashed him, and in his mind he had torn the poem up, with a heartache for itsaptness. 

"I don't believe, " he said, "that I recognize-any celebrities here. "

"I'm sorry, " said March. "Mrs. March would have been glad of someHoheits, some Grafs and Grafins, or a few Excellenzes, or even some merewell-borns. But we must try to get along with the picturesqueness. "

"I'm satisfied with the picturesqueness, " said his wife. "Don't worryabout me, Mr. Burnamy. "

"Why can't we have this sort of thing at home?"

"We're getting something like it in the roof-gardens, " said March. "Wecouldn't have it naturally because the climate is against it, with us. Atthis time in the morning over there, the sun would be burning the lifeout of the air, and the flies would be swarming on every table. At nineA. M. The mosquitoes would be eating us up in such a grove as this. So wehave to use artifice, and lift our Posthof above the fly-line and themosquito-line into the night air. I haven't seen a fly since I came toEurope. I really miss them; it makes me homesick. "

"There are plenty in Italy, " his wife suggested. 

"We must get down there before we go home. "

"But why did nobody ever tell us that there were no flies in Germany? Whydid no traveller ever put it in his book? When your stewardess said so onthe steamer, I remember that you regarded it as a bluff. " He turned toBurnamy, who was listening with the deference of a contributor: "Isn'tLili rather long? I mean for such a very prompt person. Oh, no!"

But Burnamy got to his feet, and shouted "Fraulein!" to Lili; with herhireling at her heels she was flying down a distant aisle between thetables. She called back, with a face laughing over her shoulder, "In aminute!" and vanished in the crowd. 

"Does that mean anything in particular? There's really no hurry. "

"Oh, I think she'll come now, " said Burnamy. March protested that he hadonly been amused at Lili's delay; but his wife scolded him for hisimpatience; she begged Burnamy's pardon, and repeated civilities passedbetween them. She asked if he did not think some of the young ladies werepretty beyond the European average; a very few had style; the motherswere mostly fat, and not stylish; it was well not to regard the fatherstoo closely; several old gentlemen were clearing their throats behindtheir newspapers, with noises that made her quail. There was no one soeffective as the Austrian officers, who put themselves a good deal onshow, bowing from their hips to favored groups; with the sun glintingfrom their eyeglasses, and their hands pressing their sword-hilts, theymoved between the tables with the gait of tight-laced women. 

"They all wear corsets, " Burnamy explained. 

"How much you know already!" said Mrs. March. "I can see that Europewon't be lost on you in anything. Oh, who's that?" A lady whose costumeexpressed saris at every point glided up the middle aisle of the grovewith a graceful tilt. Burnamy was silent. "She must be an American. Doyou know who she is?"

"Yes. " He hesitated, a little to name a woman whose tragedy had oncefilled the newspapers. 

Mrs. March gazed after her with the fascination which such tragediesinspire. "What grace! Is she beautiful?"

"Very. " Burnamy had not obtruded his knowledge, but somehow Mrs. Marchdid not like his knowing who she was, and how beautiful. She asked Marchto look, but he refused. 

"Those things are too squalid, " he said, and she liked him for saying it;she hoped it would not be lost upon Burnamy. 

One of the waitresses tripped on the steps near them and flung the burdenoff her tray on the stone floor before her; some of the dishes broke, andthe breakfast was lost. Tears came into the girl's eyes and rolled downher hot cheeks. "There! That is what I call tragedy, " said March. "She'llhave to pay for those things. "

"Oh, give her the money, dearest!"

"How can I?"

The girl had just got away with the ruin when Lili and her hirelingbehind her came bearing down upon them with their three substantialbreakfasts on two well-laden trays. She forestalled Burnamy's reproachesfor her delay, laughing and bridling, while she set down the dishes ofham and tongue and egg, and the little pots of coffee and frothed milk. 

"I could not so soon I wanted, because I was to serve an Americanprincess. "

Mrs. March started with proud conjecture of one of those nobleinternational marriages which fill our women with vainglory for such oftheir compatriots as make them. 

"Oh, come now, Lili!" said Burnamy. "We have queens in America, butnothing so low as princesses. This was a queen, wasn't it?"

She referred the case to her hireling, who confirmed her. "All people sayit is princess, " she insisted. 

"Well, if she's a princess we must look her up after breakfast, " saidBurnamy. "Where is she sitting?"

She pointed at a corner so far off on the other side that no one could bedistinguished, and then was gone, with a smile flashed over her shoulder, and her hireling trying to keep up with her. 

"We're all very proud of Lili's having a hired man, " said Burnamy. "Wethink it reflects credit on her customers. "

March had begun his breakfast with-the voracious appetite of anearly-rising invalid. "What coffee!"

He drew a long sigh after the first draught. 

"It's said to be made of burnt figs, " said Burnamy, from theinexhaustible advantage of his few days' priority in Carlsbad. 

"Then let's have burnt figs introduced at home as soon as possible. Butwhy burnt figs? That seems one of those doubts which are much moredifficult than faith. "

"It's not only burnt figs, " said Burnamy, with amiable superiority, "if itis burnt figs, but it's made after a formula invented by a consensus ofphysicians, and enforced by the municipality. Every cafe in Carlsbadmakes the same kind of coffee and charges the same price. "

"You are leaving us very little to find out for ourselves, " sighed March. 

"Oh, I know a lot more things. Are you fond of fishing?"

"Not very. "

"You can get a permit to catch trout in the Tepl, but they send anofficial with you who keeps count, and when you have had your sport, thetrout belong to the municipality just as they did before you caughtthem. "

"I don't see why that isn't a good notion: the last thing I should wantto do would be to eat a fish that I had caught, and that I was personallyacquainted with. Well, I'm never going away from Carlsbad. I don't wonderpeople get their doctors to tell them to come back. "

Burnamy told them a number of facts he said Stoller had got togetherabout the place, and had given him to put in shape. It was run in theinterest of people who had got out of order, so that they would keepcoming to get themselves in order again; you could hardly buy anunwholesome meal in the town; all the cooking was 'kurgemass'. He wonsuch favor with his facts that he could not stop in time: he said toMarch, "But if you ever should have a fancy for a fish of your personalacquaintance, there's a restaurant up the Tepl, where they let you pickout your trout in the water; then they catch him and broil him for you, and you know what you are eating. "

"Is it a municipal restaurant?"

"Semi-municipal, " said Burnamy, laughing. 

"We'll take Mrs. March, " said her husband, and in her gravity Burnamyfelt the limitations of a woman's sense of humor, which always definethemselves for men so unexpectedly. 

He did what he could to get back into her good graces by telling her whathe knew about distinctions and dignities that he now saw among thebreakfasters. The crowd had now grown denser till the tables were settogether in such labyrinths that any one who left the central aisle waslost in them. The serving-girls ran more swiftly to and fro, respondingwith a more nervous shrillness to the calls of "Fraulein! Fraulein!" thatfollowed them. The proprietor, in his bare head, stood like one paralyzedby his prosperity, which sent up all round him the clash of knives andcrockery, and the confusion of tongues. It was more than an hour beforeBurnamy caught Lili's eye, and three times she promised to come and bepaid before she came. Then she said, "It is so nice, when you stay alittle, " and when he told her of the poor Fraulein who had broken thedishes in her fall near them, she almost wept with tenderness; she almostwinked with wickedness when he asked if the American princess was stillin her place. 

"Do go and see who it can be!" Mrs. March entreated. "We'll wait here, "and he obeyed. "I am not sure that I like him, " she said, as soon as hewas out of hearing. "I don't know but he's coarse, after all. Do youapprove of his knowing so many people's 'taches' already?"

"Would it be any better later?" he asked in tern. "He seemed to find youinterested. "

"It's very different with us; we're not young, " she urged, only halfseriously. 

Her husband laughed. "I see you want me to defend him. Oh, hello!" hecried, and she saw Burnamy coming toward them with a young lady, who wasnodding to them from as far as she could see them. "This is the easy kindof thing that makes you Blush for the author if you find it in a novel. "

XXX. 

Mrs. March fairly took Miss Triscoe in her arms to kiss her. "Do you knowI felt it must be you, all the time! When did you come? Where is yourfather? What hotel are you staying at?"

It appeared, while Miss Triscoe was shaking hands with March, that it waslast night, and her father was finishing his breakfast, and it was one ofthe hotels on the hill. On the way back to her father it appeared that hewished to consult March's doctor; not that there was anything the matter. 

The general himself was not much softened by the reunion with hisfellow-Americans; he confided to them that his coffee was poisonous; buthe seemed, standing up with the Paris-New York Chronicle folded in hishand, to have drunk it all. Was March going off on his forenoon tramp? Hebelieved that was part of the treatment, which was probably all humbug, though he thought of trying it, now he was there. He was told the walkswere fine; he looked at Burnamy as if he had been praising them, andBurnamy said he had been wondering if March would not like to try amountain path back to his hotel; he said, not so sincerely, that hethought Mrs. March would like it. 

"I shall like your account of it, " she answered. "But I'll walk back on alevel, if you please. "

"Oh, yes, " Miss Triscoe pleaded, "come with us!"

She played a little comedy of meaning to go back with her father sogracefully that Mrs. March herself could scarcely have told just wherethe girl's real purpose of going with Burnamy began to be evident, orjust how she managed to make General Triscoe beg to have the pleasure ofseeing Mrs. March back to her hotel. 

March went with the young people across the meadow behind the Posthof andup into the forest, which began at the base of the mountain. At firstthey tried to keep him in the range of their talk; but he fell behindmore and more, and as the talk narrowed to themselves it was less andless possible to include him in it. When it began to concern their commonappreciation of the Marches, they even tried to get out of his hearing. 

"They're so young in their thoughts, " said Burnamy, "and they seem asmuch interested in everything as they could have been thirty years ago. They belong to a time when the world was a good deal fresher than it isnow; don't you think? I mean, in the eighteen-sixties. "

"Oh, yes, I can see that. "

"I don't know why we shouldn't be born older in each generation thanpeople were in the last. Perhaps we are, " he suggested. 

"I don't know how you mean, " said the girl, keeping vigorously up withhim; she let him take the jacket she threw off, but she would not havehis hand at the little steeps where he wanted to give it. 

"I don't believe I can quite make it out myself. But fancy a man thatbegan to act at twenty, quite unconsciously of course, from the pastexperience of the whole race--"

"He would be rather a dreadful person, wouldn't he?"

"Rather monstrous, yes, " he owned, with a laugh. "But that's where thepsychological interest would come in. "

As if she did not feel the notion quite pleasant she turned from it. "Isuppose you've been writing all sorts of things since you came here. "

"Well, it hasn't been such a great while as it's seemed, and I've had Mr. Stoller's psychological interests to look after. "

"Oh, yes! Do you like him?"

"I don't know. He's a lump of honest selfishness. He isn't bad. You knowwhere to have him. He's simple, too. "

"You mean, like Mr. March?"

"I didn't mean that; but why not? They're not of the same generation, butStoller isn't modern. "

"I'm very curious to see him, " said the girl. 

"Do you want me to introduce him?"

"You can introduce him to papa. "

They stopped and looked across the curve of the mounting path, down onMarch, who had sunk on a way-side seat, and was mopping his forehead. Hesaw them, and called up: "Don't wait for me. I'll join you, gradually. "

"I don't want to lose you, " Burnamy called back, but he kept on with MissTriscoe. "I want to get the Hirschensprung in, " he explained. "It's thecliff where a hunted deer leaped down several hundred feet to get awayfrom an emperor who was after him. "

"Oh, yes. They have them everywhere. "

"Do they? Well, anyway, there's a noble view up there. "

There was no view on the way up. The Germans' notion of a woodland iseverywhere that of a dense forest such as their barbarous tribesprimevally herded in. It means the close-set stems of trees, with theirtops interwoven in a roof of boughs and leaves so densely that you maywalk dry through it almost as long as a German shower lasts. When the sunshines there is a pleasant greenish light in the aisles, shot here andthere with the gold that trickles through. There is nothing of theaccident of an American wood in these forests, which have been watchedand weeded by man ever since they burst the soil. They remain nurseries, but they have the charm which no human care can alienate. The smell oftheir bark and their leaves, and of the moist, flowerless earth abouttheir roots, came to March where he sat rich with the memories of hiscountry-bred youth, and drugged all consciousness of his long life incities since, and made him a part of nature, with dulled interests anddimmed perspectives, so that for the moment he had the enjoyment ofexemption from care. There was no wild life to penetrate his isolation;no birds, not a squirrel, not an insect; an old man who had bidden himgood-morning, as he came up, kept fumbling at the path with his hoe, andwas less intrusive than if he had not been there. 

March thought of the impassioned existence of these young people playingthe inevitable comedy of hide and seek which the youth of the race hasplayed from the beginning of time. The other invalids who haunted theforest, and passed up and down before him in fulfilment of their severalprescriptions, had a thin unreality in spite of the physical bulk thatprevailed among them, and they heightened the relief that theforest-spirit brought him from the strenuous contact of that young drama. He had been almost painfully aware that the persons in it had met, however little they knew it, with an eagerness intensified by their briefseparation, and he fancied it was the girl who had unconsciously operatedtheir reunion in response to the young man's longing, her will makingitself electrically felt through space by that sort of wirelesstelegraphy which love has long employed, and science has just begun toimagine. 

He would have been willing that they should get home alone, but he knewthat his wife would require an account of them from him, and though hecould have invented something of the kind, if it came to the worst, hewas aware that it would not do for him to arrive without them. Thethought goaded him from his seat, and he joined the upward procession ofhis fellow-sick, as it met another procession straggling downward; theways branched in all directions, with people on them everywhere, bentupon building up in a month the health which they would spend the rest ofthe year in demolishing. 

He came upon his charges unexpectedly at a turn of the path, and MissTriscoe told him that he ought to have been with them for the view fromthe Hirschensprung. It was magnificent, she said, and she made Burnamycorroborate her praise of it, and agree with her that it was worth theclimb a thousand times; he modestly accepted the credit she appearedwilling to give him, of inventing the Hirschensprung. 

XXXI. 

Between his work for Stoller and what sometimes seemed theobstructiveness of General Triscoe, Burnamy was not very much with MissTriscoe. He was not devout, but he went every Sunday to the prettyEnglish church on the hill, where he contributed beyond his means to thesupport of the English clergy on the Continent, for the sake of lookingat her back hair during the service, and losing himself in the gracefullines which defined, the girl's figure from the slant of her flowery hatto the point where the pewtop crossed her elastic waist. One happymorning the general did not come to church, and he had the fortune towalk home with her to her pension, where she lingered with him a moment, and almost made him believe she might be going to ask him to come in. 

The next evening, when he was sauntering down the row of glittering shopsbeside the Tepl, with Mrs. March, they overtook the general and hisdaughter at a place where the girl was admiring some stork-scissors inthe window; she said she wished she were still little, so that she couldget them. They walked home with the Triscoes, and then he hurried Mrs. March back to the shop. The man had already put up his shutters, and wasjust closing his door, but Burnamy pushed in, and asked to look at thestork-scissors they had seen in the window. The gas was out, and theshopman lighted a very dim candle, to show them. 

"I knew you wanted to get them for her, after what she said, Mrs. March, "he laughed, nervously, "and you must let me lend you the money. "

"Why, of course!" she answered, joyfully humoring his feint. "Shall I putmy card in for the man to send home to her with them?"

"Well--no. No. Not your card--exactly. Or, yes! Yes, you must, Isuppose. "

They made the hushing street gay with their laughter; the next eveningMiss Triscoe came upon the Marches and Burnamy where they sat aftersupper listening to the concert at Pupp's, and thanked Mrs. March for thescissors. Then she and Burnamy had their laugh again, and Miss Triscoejoined them, to her father's frowning mystification. He stared round fora table; they were all taken, and he could not refuse the interestBurnamy made with the waiters to bring them one and crowd it in. He hadto ask him to sup with them, and Burnamy sat down and heard the concertthrough beside Miss Triscoe. 

"What is so tremendously amusing in a pair of stork-scissors?" Marchdemanded, when his wife and he were alone. 

"Why, I was wanting to tell you, dearest, " she began, in a tone which hefelt to be wheedling, and she told the story of the scissors. 

"Look here, my dear! Didn't you promise to let this love-affair alone?"

"That was on the ship. And besides, what would you have done, I shouldlike to know? Would you have refused to let him buy them for her?" Sheadded, carelessly, "He wants us to go to the Kurhaus ball with him. "

"Oh, does he!"

"Yes. He says he knows that she can get her father to let her go if wewill chaperon them. And I promised that you would. "

"That I would?"

"It will do just as well if you go. And it will be very amusing; you cansee something of Carlsbad society. "

"But I'm not going!" he declared. "It would interfere with my cure. Thesitting up late would be bad enough, but I should get very hungry, and Ishould eat potato salad and sausages, and drink beer, and do all sorts ofunwholesome things. "

"Nonsense! The refreshments will be 'kurgemass', of course. "

"You can go yourself, " he said. 

A ball is not the same thing for a woman after fifty as it is beforetwenty, but still it has claims upon the imagination, and the novelcircumstance of a ball in the Kurhaus in Carlsbad enhanced these for Mrs. March. It was the annual reunion which is given by municipal authority inthe large hall above the bathrooms; it is frequented with safety andpleasure by curious strangers, and now, upon reflection, it began to havefor Mrs. March the charm of duty; she believed that she could finallyhave made March go in her place, but she felt that she ought really to goin his, and save him from the late hours and the late supper. 

"Very well, then, " she said at last, "I will go. "

It appeared that any civil person might go to the reunion who chose topay two florins and a half. There must have been some sort ofrestriction, and the ladies of Burnamy's party went with a good deal ofamused curiosity to see what the distinctions were; but they saw noneunless it was the advantages which the military had. The long hall overthe bathrooms shaped itself into a space for the dancing at one end, andall the rest of it was filled with tables, which at half past eight werecrowded with people, eating, drinking, and smoking. The military enjoyedthe monopoly of a table next the rail dividing the dancing from thedining space. There the tight-laced Herr Hauptmanns and Herr Lieutenantssat at their sausage and beer and cigars in the intervals of the waltzes, and strengthened themselves for a foray among the gracious Fraus andFrauleins on the benches lining three sides of the dancing-space. Fromthe gallery above many civilian spectators looked down upon the gayety, and the dress-coats of a few citizens figured among the uniforms. 

As the evening wore on some ladies of greater fashion found their way tothe dancing-floor, and toward ten o'clock it became rather crowded. Aparty of American girls showed their Paris dresses in the transatlanticversions of the waltz. At first they danced with the young men who camewith them; but after a while they yielded to the custom of the place, anddanced with any of the officers who asked them. 

"I know it's the custom, " said Mrs. March to Miss Triscoe, who was at herside in one of the waltzes she had decided to sit out, so as not to bedancing all the time with Burnamy, "but I never can like it without anintroduction. "

"No, " said the girl, with the air of putting temptation decidedly away, "I don't believe papa would, either. "

A young officer came up, and drooped in mute supplication before her. Sheglanced at Mrs. March, who turned her face away; and she excused herselfwith the pretence that she had promised the dance, and by good fortune, Burnamy, who had been unscrupulously waltzing with a lady he did notknow, came up at the moment. She rose and put her hand on his arm, andthey both bowed to the officer before they whirled away. The officerlooked after them with amiable admiration; then he turned to Mrs. Marchwith a light of banter in his friendly eyes, and was unmistakably askingher to dance. She liked his ironical daring, she liked it so much thatshe forgot her objection to partners without introductions; she forgother fifty-odd years; she forgot that she was a mother of grown childrenand even a mother-in-law; she remembered only the step of her out-datedwaltz. 

It seemed to be modern enough for the cheerful young officer, and theywere suddenly revolving with the rest. . . A tide of long-forgottengirlhood welled up in her heart, and she laughed as she floated off on itpast the astonished eyes of Miss Triscoe and Burnamy. She saw themfalter, as if they had lost their step in their astonishment; then theyseemed both to vanish, and her partner had released her, and was helpingMiss Triscoe up from the floor; Burnamy was brushing the dust from hisknees, and the citizen who had bowled them over was boisterouslyapologizing and incessantly bowing. 

"Oh, are you hurt?" Mrs. March implored. "I'm sure you must be killed;and I did it! I don't know, what I was thinking of!"

The girl laughed. "I'm not hurt a bit!"

They had one impulse to escape from the place, and from the sympathy andcongratulation. In the dressing-room she declared again that she was allright. "How beautifully you waltz, Mrs. March!" she said, and she laughedagain, and would not agree with her that she had been ridiculous. "ButI'm glad those American girls didn't see me. And I can't be too thankfulpapa didn't come!"

Mrs. March's heart sank at the thought of what General Triscoe wouldthink of her. "You must tell him I did it. I can never lift up my head!"

"No, I shall not. No one did it, " said the girl, magnanimously. Shelooked down sidelong at her draperies. "I was so afraid I had torn mydress! I certainly heard something rip. "

It was one of the skirts of Burnamy's coat, which he had caught into hishand and held in place till he could escape to the men's dressing-room, where he had it pinned up so skillfully that the damage was not suspectedby the ladies. He had banged his knee abominably too; but they did notsuspect that either, as he limped home on the air beside them, first toMiss Triscoe's pension, and then to Mrs. March's hotel. 

It was quite eleven o'clock, which at Carlsbad is as late as three in themorning anywhere else, when she let herself into her room. She decidednot to tell her husband, then; and even at breakfast, which they had atthe Posthof, she had not got to her confession, though she had told himeverything else about the ball, when the young officer with whom she haddanced passed between the tables near her. He caught her eye and bowedwith a smile of so much meaning that March asked, "Who's your prettyyoung friend?"

"Oh, that!" she answered carelessly. "That was one of the officers at theball, " and she laughed. 

"You seem to be in the joke, too, " he said. "What is it?"

"Oh, something. I'll tell you some time. Or perhaps you'll find out. "

"I'm afraid you won't let me wait. "

"No, I won't, " and now she told him. She had expected teasing, ridicule, sarcasm, anything but the psychological interest mixed with a sort ofretrospective tenderness which he showed. "I wish I could have seen you;I always thought you danced well. " He added: "It seems that you need achaperon too. "

The next morning, after March and General Triscoe had started off uponone of the hill climbs, the young people made her go with them for a walkup the Tepl, as far as the cafe of the Freundschaftsaal. In the groundsan artist in silhouettes was cutting out the likenesses of people whosupposed themselves to have profiles, and they begged Mrs. March to sitfor hers. It was so good that she insisted on Miss Triscoe's sitting inturn, and then Burnamy. Then he had the inspiration to propose that theyshould all three sit together, and it appeared that such a group waswithin the scope of the silhouettist's art; he posed them in his littlebower, and while he was mounting the picture they took turns, at fivekreutzers each, in listening to American tunes played by his Edisonphonograph. 

Mrs. March felt that all this was weakening her moral fibre; but shetried to draw the line at letting Burnamy keep the group. "Why not?" hepleaded. 

"You oughtn't to ask, " she returned. "You've no business to have MissTriscoe's picture, if you must know. "

"But you're there to chaperon us!" he persisted. 

He began to laugh, and they all laughed when she said, "You need achaperon who doesn't lose her head, in a silhouette. " But it seemeduseless to hold out after that, and she heard herself asking, "Shall welet him keep it, Miss Triscoe?"

Burnamy went off to his work with Stoller, carrying the silhouette withhim, and she kept on with Miss Triscoe to her hotel. In turning from thegate after she parted with the girl she found herself confronted withMrs. Adding and Rose. The ladies exclaimed at each other in anastonishment from which they had to recover before they could begin totalk, but from the first moment Mrs. March perceived that Mrs. Adding hadsomething to say. The more freely to say it she asked Mrs. March into herhotel, which was in the same street with the pension of the Triscoes, andshe let her boy go off about the exploration of Carlsbad; he promised tobe back in an hour. 

"Well, now what scrape are you in?" March asked when his wife came home, and began to put off her things, with signs of excitement which he couldnot fail to note. He was lying down after a long tramp, and he seemedvery comfortable. 

His question suggested something of anterior import, and she told himabout the silhouettes, and the advantage the young people had taken oftheir power over her through their knowledge of her foolish behavior atthe ball. 

He said, lazily: "They seem to be working you for all you're worth. Isthat it?"

"No; there is something worse. Something's happened which throws all thatquite in the shade. Mrs. Adding is here. "

"Mrs. Adding?" he repeated, with a dimness for names which she would notallow was growing on him. 

"Don't be stupid, dear! Mrs. Adding, who sat opposite Mr. Kenby on theNorumbia. The mother of the nice boy. "

"Oh, yes! Well, that's good!"

"No, it isn't! Don't say such a thing--till you know!" she cried, with acertain shrillness which warned him of an unfathomed seriousness in thefact. He sat up as if better to confront the mystery. "I have been at herhotel, and she has been telling me that she's just come from Berlin, andthat Mr. Kenby's been there, and--Now I won't have you making a joke ofit, or breaking out about it, as if it were not a thing to be looked for;though of course with the others on our hands you're not to blame for notthinking of it. But you can see yourself that she's young andgood-looking. She did speak beautifully of her son, and if it were notfor him, I don't believe she would hesitate--"

"For heaven's sake, what are you driving at?" March broke in, and sheanswered him as vehemently:

"He's asked her to marry him!"

"Kenby? Mrs. Adding?"

"Yes!"

"Well, now, Isabel, this won't do! They ought to be ashamed ofthemselves. With that morbid, sensitive boy! It's shocking--"

"Will you listen? Or do you want me to stop?" He arrested himself at herthreat, and she resumed, after giving her contempt of his turbulence timeto sink in, "She refused him, of course!"

"Oh, all right, then!"

"You take it in such a way that I've a great mind not to tell youanything more about it. "

"I know you have, " he said, stretching himself out again; "but you'll doit, all the same. You'd have been awfully disappointed if I had been calmand collected. "

"She refused him, " she began again, "although she respects him, becauseshe feels that she ought to devote herself to her son. Of course she'svery young, still; she was married when she was only nineteen to a mantwice her age, and she's not thirty-five yet. I don't think she evercared much for her husband; and she wants you to find out something abouthim. "

"I never heard of him. I--"

Mrs. March made a "tchck!" that would have recalled the most consequentof men from the most logical and coherent interpretation to the trueintent of her words. He perceived his mistake, and said, resolutely:"Well, I won't do it. If she's refused him, that's the end of it; sheneedn't know anything about him, and she has no right to. "

"Now I think differently, " said Mrs. March, with an inductive air. "Ofcourse she has to know about him, now. " She stopped, and March turned hishead and looked expectantly at her. "He said he would not consider heranswer final, but would hope to see her again and--She's afraid he mayfollow her--What are you looking at me so for?"

"Is he coming here?"

"Am I to blame if he is? He said he was going to write to her. "

March burst into a laugh. "Well, they haven't been beating about thebush! When I think how Miss Triscoe has been pursuing Burnamy from thefirst moment she set eyes on him, with the settled belief that she wasrunning from him, and he imagines that he has been boldly following her, without the least hope from her, I can't help admiring the simpledirectness of these elders. "

"And if Kenby wants to talk with you, what will you say?" she cut ineagerly. 

"I'll say I don't like the subject. What am I in Carlsbad for? I came forthe cure, and I'm spending time and money on it. I might as well go andtake my three cups of Felsenquelle on a full stomach as to listen toKenby. "

"I know it's bad for you, and I wish we had never seen those people, "said Mrs. March. "I don't believe he'll want to talk with you; but if--"

"Is Mrs. Adding in this hotel? I'm not going to have them round in mybread-trough!"

"She isn't. She's at one of the hotels on the hill. "

"Very well, let her stay there, then. They can manage their love-affairsin their own way. The only one I care the least for is the boy. "

"Yes, it is forlorn for him. But he likes Mr. Kenby, and--No, it'shorrid, and you can't make it anything else!"

"Well, I'm not trying to. " He turned his face away. "I must get my nap, now. " After she thought he must have fallen asleep, he said, "The firstthing you know, those old Eltwins will be coming round and telling usthat they're going to get divorced. " Then he really slept. 

XXXII. 

The mid-day dinner at Pupp's was the time to see the Carlsbad world, andthe Marches had the habit of sitting long at table to watch it. 

There was one family in whom they fancied a sort of literary quality, asif they had come out of some pleasant German story, but they never knewanything about them. The father by his dress must have been a Protestantclergyman; the mother had been a beauty and was still very handsome; thedaughter was good-looking, and of a good-breeding which was both girlishand ladylike. They commended themselves by always taking the table d'hotedinner, as the Marches did, and eating through from the soup and the rankfresh-water fish to the sweet, upon the same principle: the husband ateall the compote and gave the others his dessert, which was not good forhim. A young girl of a different fascination remained as much a mystery. She was small and of an extreme tenuity, which became more bewildering asshe advanced through her meal, especially at supper, which she made of along cucumber pickle, a Frankfort sausage of twice the pickle's length, and a towering goblet of beer; in her lap she held a shivering littlehound; she was in the decorous keeping of an elderly maid, and had everyeffect of being a gracious Fraulein. A curious contrast to her Teutonicvoracity was the temperance of a young Latin swell, imaginably fromTrieste, who sat long over his small coffee and cigarette, and tranquillymused upon the pages of an Italian newspaper. At another table there wasa very noisy lady, short and fat, in flowing draperies of white, whocommanded a sallow family of South-Americans, and loudly harangued themin South-American Spanish; she flared out in a picture which nowherelacked strong effects; and in her background lurked a mysterious blackface and figure, ironically subservient to the old man, the mild boy, andthe pretty young girl in the middle distance of the family group. 

Amidst the shows of a hardened worldliness there were touching glimpsesof domesticity and heart: a young bride fed her husband soup from her ownplate with her spoon, unabashed by the publicity; a mother and her twopretty daughters hung about a handsome officer, who must have been newlybetrothed to one of the girls; and, the whole family showed a helplessfondness for him, which he did not despise, though he held it in check;the girls dressed alike, and seemed to have for their whole change ofcostume a difference from time to time in the color of their sleeves. TheMarches believed they had seen the growth of the romance which hadeventuated so happily; and they saw other romances which did not in anywise eventuate. Carlsbad was evidently one of the great marriage marts ofmiddle Europe, where mothers brought their daughters to be admired, andeverywhere the flower of life was blooming for the hand of love. It blewby on all the promenades in dresses and hats as pretty as they could bebought or imagined; but it was chiefly at Pupp's that it flourished. Forthe most part it seemed to flourish in vain, and to be destined to be putby for another season to dream, bulblike, of the coming summer in thequiet of Moldavian and Transylvanian homes. 

Perhaps it was oftener of fortunate effect than the spectators knew; butfor their own pleasure they would not have had their pang for it less;and March objected to having a more explicit demand upon his sympathy. "We could have managed, " he said, at the close of their dinner, as helooked compassionately round upon the parterre of young girls, "we couldhave managed with Burnamy and Miss Triscoe; but to have Mrs. Adding andKenby launched upon us is too much. Of course I like Kenby, and if thewidow alone were concerned I would give him my blessing: a wife more or awidow less is not going to disturb the equilibrium of the universe;but--" He stopped, and then he went on: "Men and women are well enough. They complement each other very agreeably, and they have very good timestogether. But why should they get in love?--It is sure to make themuncomfortable to themselves and annoying to others. " He broke off, andstared about him. "My dear, this is really charming--almost as charmingas the Posthof. " The crowd spread from the open vestibule of the hoteland the shelter of its branching pavilion roofs until it was dimmed inthe obscurity of the low grove across the way in an ultimate depth wherethe musicians were giving the afternoon concert. Between its twostationary divisions moved a current of promenaders, with some sucheffect as if the colors of a lovely garden should have liquefied andflowed in mingled rose and lilac, pink and yellow, and white and orange, and all the middle tints of modern millinery. Above on one side were theagreeable bulks of architecture, in the buff and gray of Carlsbad; andfar beyond on the other were the upland slopes, with villas and longcurves of country roads, belted in with miles of wall. "It would be aboutas offensive to have a love-interest that one personally knew aboutintruded here, " he said, "as to have a two-spanner carriage driventhrough this crowd. It ought to be forbidden by the municipality. "

Mrs. March listened with her ears, but not with her eyes, and sheanswered: "See that handsome young Greek priest! Isn't he anarchimandrite? The portier said he was. "

"Then let him pass for an archimandrite. Now, " he recurred to hisgrievance again, dreamily, "I have got to take Papa Triscoe in hand, andpoison his mind against Burnamy, and I shall have to instil a few dropsof venomous suspicion against Kenby into the heart of poor little RoseAdding. Oh;" he broke out, "they will spoil everything. They'll be withus morning, noon, and night, " and he went on to work the joke of repiningat his lot. The worst thing, he said, would be the lovers' pretence ofbeing interested in something besides themselves, which they were no morecapable of than so many lunatics. How could they care for pretty girlsplaying tennis on an upland level, in the waning afternoon? Or a cartfulof peasant women stopping to cross themselves at a way-side shrine? Or awhistling boy with holes in his trousers pausing from some waysideraspberries to touch his hat and say good-morning? Or those preposterousmaidens sprinkling linen on the grass from watering-pots while the skieswere full of rain? Or that blacksmith shop where Peter the Great made ahorseshoe. Or the monument of the young warrior-poet Koerner, with agentle-looking girl and her mother reading and knitting on a bench beforeit? These simple pleasures sufficed them, but what could lovers reallycare for them? A peasant girl flung down on the grassy road-side, fastasleep, while her yoke-fellow, the gray old dog, lay in his harness nearher with one drowsy eye half open for her and the other for the contentsof their cart; a boy chasing a red squirrel in the old upper town beyondthe Tepl, and enlisting the interest of all the neighbors; the negrodoor-keeper at the Golden Shield who ought to have spoken our SouthernEnglish, but who spoke bad German and was from Cairo; the sweet afternoonstillness in the woods; the good German mothers crocheting at the Posthofconcerts. Burnamy as a young poet might hate felt the precious quality ofthese things, if his senses had not been holden by Miss Triscoe; and shemight have felt it if only he had done so. But as it was it would be lostupon their preoccupation; with Mrs. Adding and Kenby it would behopeless. 

A day or two after Mrs. March had met Mrs. Adding, she went with herhusband to revere a certain magnificent blackamoor whom he had discoveredat the entrance of one of the aristocratic hotels on the Schlossberg, where he performed the function of a kind of caryatid, and looked, in theblack of his skin and the white of his flowing costume, like a colossalfigure carved in ebony and ivory. They took a roundabout way through astreet entirely of villa-pensions; every house in Carlsbad but one is apension if it is not an hotel; but these were of a sort of sentimentalprettiness; with each a little garden before it, and a bower with an irontable in it for breakfasting and supping out-doors; and he said that theywould be the very places for bridal couples who wished to spend thehoney-moon in getting well of the wedding surfeit. She denounced him forsaying such a thing as that, and for his inconsistency in complaining oflovers while he was willing to think of young married people. Hecontended that there was a great difference in the sort of demand thatyoung married people made upon the interest of witnesses, and that theywere at least on their way to sanity; and before they agreed, they hadcome to the hotel with the blackamoor at the door. While they lingered, sharing the splendid creature's hospitable pleasure in the spectacle heformed, they were aware of a carriage with liveried coachman and footmanat the steps of the hotel; the liveries were very quiet anddistinguished, and they learned that the equipage was waiting for thePrince of Coburg, or the Princess of Montenegro, or Prince Henry ofPrussia; there were differing opinions among the twenty or thirtybystanders. Mrs. March said she did not care which it was; and she waspatient of the denouement, which began to postpone itself with delicatedelays. After repeated agitations at the door among portiers, proprietors, and waiters, whose fluttered spirits imparted their thrillto the spectators, while the coachman and footman remainedsculpturesquely impassive in their places, the carriage moved aside andlet an energetic American lady and her family drive up to the steps. Thehotel people paid her a tempered devotion, but she marred the effect byrushing out and sitting on a balcony to wait for the delaying royalties. There began to be more promises of their early appearance; a footman gotdown and placed himself at the carriage door; the coachman stiffenedhimself on his box; then he relaxed; the footman drooped, and evenwandered aside. There came a moment when at some signal the carriagedrove quite away from the portal and waited near the gate of thestableyard; it drove back, and the spectators redoubled their attention. Nothing happened, and some of them dropped off. At last an indescribablesignificance expressed itself in the official group at the door; a man ina high hat and dresscoat hurried out; a footman hurried to meet him; theyspoke inaudibly together. The footman mounted to his place; the coachmangathered up his reins and drove rapidly out of the hotel-yard, down thestreet, round the corner, out of sight. The man in the tall hat anddress-coat went in; the official group at the threshold dissolved; thestatue in ivory and ebony resumed its place; evidently the Hoheit ofCoburg, or Montenegro, or Prussia, was not going to take the air. 

"My dear, this is humiliating. "

"Not at all! I wouldn't have missed it for anything. Think how near wecame to seeing them!"

"I shouldn't feel so shabby if we had seen them. But to hang round herein this plebeian abeyance, and then to be defeated and defrauded at last!I wonder how long this sort of thing is going on?"

"What thing?"

"This base subjection of the imagination to the Tom Foolery of the Ages. "

"I don't know what you mean. I'm sure it's very natural to want to see aPrince. "

"Only too natural. It's so deeply founded in nature that after denyingroyalty by word and deed for a hundred years, we Americans are hungrierfor it than anybody else. Perhaps we may come back to it!"

"Nonsense!"

They looked up at the Austrian flag on the tower of the hotel, languidlycurling and uncurling in the bland evening air, as it had over a thousandyears of stupid and selfish monarchy, while all the generous republics ofthe Middle Ages had perished, and the commonwealths of later times hadpassed like fever dreams. That dull, inglorious empire had antedated oroutlived Venice and Genoa, Florence and Siena, the England of Cromwell, the Holland of the Stadtholders, and the France of many revolutions, andall the fleeting democracies which sprang from these. 

March began to ask himself how his curiosity differed from that of theEuropeans about him; then he became aware that these had detachedthemselves, and left him exposed to the presence of a fellow countryman. It was Otterson, with Mrs. Otterson; he turned upon March with hilariousrecognition. "Hello! Most of the Americans in Carlsbad seem to be hanginground here for a sight of these kings. Well, we don't have a great manyof 'em, and it's natural we shouldn't want to miss any. But now, youEastern fellows, you go to Europe every summer, and yet you don't seem toget enough of 'em. Think it's human nature, or did it get so ground intous in the old times that we can't get it out, no difference what we say?"

"That's very much what I've been asking myself, " said March. "Perhapsit's any kind of show. We'd wait nearly as long for the President to comeout, wouldn't we?"

"I reckon we would. But we wouldn't for his nephew, or his secondcousin. "

"Well, they wouldn't be in the way of the succession. "

"I guess you're right. " The Iowan seemed better satisfied with March'sphilosophy than March felt himself, and he could not forbear adding:

"But I don't, deny that we should wait for the President because he's akind of king too. I don't know that we shall ever get over wanting to seekings of some kind. Or at least my wife won't. May I present you to Mrs. March?"

"Happy to meet you, Mrs. March, " said the Iowan. "Introduce you to Mrs. Otterson. I'm the fool in my family, and I know just how you feel about achance like this. I don't mean that you're--"

They all laughed at the hopeless case, and Mrs. March said, with one ofher unexpected likings: "I understand, Mr. Otterson. And I would ratherbe our kind of fool than the kind that pretends not to care for the sightof a king. "

"Like you and me, Mrs. Otterson, " said March. 

"Indeed, indeed, " said the lady, "I'd like to see a king too, if itdidn't take all night. Good-evening, " she said, turning her husband aboutwith her, as if she suspected a purpose of patronage in Mrs. March, andwas not going to have it. 

Otterson looked over his shoulder to explain, despairingly: "The troublewith me is that when I do get a chance to talk English, there's such aflow of language it carries me away, and I don't know just where I'mlanding. "

XXXIII. 

There were several kings and their kindred at Carlsbad that summer. Oneday the Duchess of Orleans drove over from Marienbad, attended by theDuke on his bicycle. After luncheon, they reappeared for a moment beforemounting to her carriage with their Secretaries: two young Frenchgentlemen whose dress and bearing better satisfied Mrs. March's exactingpassion for an aristocratic air in their order. The Duke was fat andfair, as a Bourbon should be, and the Duchess fatter, though not so fair, as became a Hapsburg, but they were both more plebeian-looking than theirretainers, who were slender as well as young, and as perfectly appointedas English tailors could imagine them. 

"It wouldn't do for the very highest sort of Highhotes, " March declared, "to look their own consequence personally; they have to leave that, likeeverything else, to their inferiors. "

By a happy heterophemy of Mrs. March's the German Hoheit had now becomeHighhote, which was so much more descriptive that they had permanentlyadopted it, and found comfort to their republican pride in the mockerywhich it poured upon the feudal structure of society. They applied itwith a certain compunction, however, to the King of Servia, who came afew days after the Duke and Duchess: he was such a young King, and ofsuch a little country. They watched for him from the windows of thereading-room, while the crowd outside stood six deep on the three sidesof the square before the hotel, and the two plain public carriages whichbrought the King and his suite drew tamely up at the portal, where theproprietor and some civic dignitaries received him. His moderatedapproach, so little like that of royalty on the stage, to which Americansare used, allowed Mrs. March to make sure of the pale, slight, insignificant, amiable-looking youth in spectacles as the sovereign shewas ambuscading. Then no appeal to her principles could keep her frompeeping through the reading-room door into the rotunda, where the Kinggraciously but speedily dismissed the civic gentlemen and the proprietor, and vanished into the elevator. She was destined to see him so oftenafterwards that she scarcely took the trouble to time her dining andsupping by that of the simple potentate, who had his meals in one of thepublic rooms, with three gentlemen of his suite, in sack-coats likehimself, after the informal manner of the place. 

Still another potentate, who happened that summer to be sojourningabroad, in the interval of a successful rebellion, was at the opera onenight with some of his faithful followers. Burnamy had offered Mrs. March, who supposed that he merely wanted her and her husband with him, places in a box; but after she eagerly accepted, it seemed that he wishedher to advise him whether it would do to ask Miss Triscoe and her fatherto join them. 

"Why not?" she returned, with an arching of the eyebrows. 

"Why, " he said, "perhaps I had better make a clean breast of it. "

"Perhaps you had, " she said, and they both laughed, though he laughedwith a knot between his eyes. 

"The fact is, you know, this isn't my treat, exactly. It's Mr. Stoller's. " At the surprise in her face he hurried on. "He's got back hisfirst letter in the paper, and he's so much pleased with the way he readsin print, that he wants to celebrate. "

"Yes, " said Mrs. March, non-committally. 

Burnamy laughed again. "But he's bashful, and he isn't sure that youwould all take it in the right way. He wants you as friends of mine; andhe hasn't quite the courage to ask you himself. "

This seemed to Mrs. March so far from bad that she said: "That's verynice of him. Then he's satisfied with--with your help? I'm glad of that. "

"Thank you. He's met the Triscoes, and he thought it would be pleasant toyou if they went, too. "

"Oh, certainly. "

"He thought, " Burnamy went on, with the air of feeling his way, "that wemight all go to the opera, and then--then go for a little supperafterwards at Schwarzkopf's. "

He named the only place in Carlsbad where you can sup so late as teno'clock; as the opera begins at six, and is over at half past eight, nonebut the wildest roisterers frequent the place. 

"Oh!" said Mrs. March. "I don't know how a late supper would agree withmy husband's cure. I should have to ask him. "

"We could make it very hygienic, " Burnamy explained. 

In repeating his invitation she blamed Burnamy's uncandor so much thatMarch took his part, as perhaps she intended, and said, "Oh, nonsense, "and that he should like to go in for the whole thing; and General Triscoeaccepted as promptly for himself and his daughter. That made six people, Burnamy counted up, and he feigned a decent regret that there was notroom for Mrs. Adding and her son; he would have liked to ask them. 

Mrs. March did not enjoy it so much as coming with her husband alone whenthey took two florin seats in the orchestra for the comedy. The comedyalways began half an hour earlier than the opera, and they had afive-o'clock supper at the Theatre-Cafe before they went, and they got tosleep by nine o'clock; now they would be up till half past ten at least, and that orgy at Schwarzkopf's might not be at all good for him. Butstill she liked being there; and Miss Triscoe made her take the bestseat; Burnamy and Stoller made the older men take the other seats besidethe ladies, while they sat behind, or stood up, when they, wished to see, as people do in the back of a box. Stoller was not much at ease inevening dress, but he bore himself with a dignity which was not perhapsso gloomy as it looked; Mrs. March thought him handsome in his way, andrequired Miss Triscoe to admire him. As for Burnamy's beauty it was notnecessary to insist upon that; he had the distinction of slender youth;and she liked to think that no Highhote there was of a more patricianpresence than this yet unprinted contributor to 'Every Other Week'. Heand Stoller seemed on perfect terms; or else in his joy he was able tohide the uneasiness which she had fancied in him from the first time shesaw them together, and which had never been quite absent from his mannerin Stoller's presence. Her husband always denied that it existed, or ifit did that it was anything but Burnamy's effort to get on common groundwith an inferior whom fortune had put over him. 

The young fellow talked with Stoller, and tried to bring him into therange of the general conversation. He leaned over the ladies, from timeto time, and pointed out the notables whom he saw in the house; she wasglad, for his sake, that he did not lean less over her than over MissTriscoe. He explained certain military figures in the boxes opposite, andcertain ladies of rank who did not look their rank; Miss Triscoe, to Mrs. March's thinking, looked their united ranks, and more; her dress was verysimple, but of a touch which saved it from being insipidly girlish; herbeauty was dazzling. 

"Do you see that old fellow in the corner chair just behind theorchestra?" asked Burnamy. "He's ninety-six years old, and he comes tothe theatre every night, and falls asleep as soon as the curtain rises, and sleeps through till the end of the act. "

"How dear!" said the girl, leaning forward to fix the nonagenarian withher glasses, while many other glasses converged upon her. "Oh, wouldn'tyou like to know him, Mr. March?"

"I should consider it a liberal education. They have brought these thingsto a perfect system in Europe. There is nothing to make life passsmoothly like inflexible constancy to an entirely simple custom. Mydear, " he added to his wife, "I wish we'd seen this sage before. He'dhave helped us through a good many hours of unintelligible comedy. I'malways coming as Burnamy's guest, after this. "

The young fellow swelled with pleasure in his triumph, and casting an eyeabout the theatre to cap it, he caught sight of that other potentate. Hewhispered joyfully, "Ah! We've got two kings here to-night, " and heindicated in a box of their tier just across from that where the King ofServia sat, the well-known face of the King of New York. 

"He isn't bad-looking, " said March, handing his glass to General Triscoe. "I've not seen many kings in exile; a matter of a few Carlist princes andex-sovereign dukes, and the good Henry V. Of France, once, when I wasstaying a month in Venice; but I don't think they any of them looked thepart better. I suppose he has his dream of recurring power like therest. "

"Dream!" said General Triscoe with the glass at his eyes. "He's dead sureof it. "

"Oh, you don't really mean that!"

"I don't know why I should have changed my mind. "

"Then it's as if we were in the presence of Charles II. Just before hewas called back to England, or Napoleon in the last moments of Elba. It'sbetter than that. The thing is almost unique; it's a new situation inhistory. Here's a sovereign who has no recognized function, no legalstatus, no objective existence. He has no sort of public being, except inthe affection of his subjects. It took an upheaval little short of anearthquake to unseat him. His rule, as we understand it, was bad for allclasses; the poor suffered more than the rich; the people have now hadthree years of self-government; and yet this wonderful man has such ahold upon the masses that he is going home to win the cause of oppressionat the head of the oppressed. When he's in power again, he will be assubjective as ever, with the power of civic life and death, and anidolatrous following perfectly ruthless in the execution of his will. "

"We've only begun, " said the general. "This kind of king is municipal, now; but he's going to be national. And then, good-by, Republic!"

"The only thing like it, " March resumed, too incredulous of the evilfuture to deny himself the aesthetic pleasure of the parallel, "is therise of the Medici in Florence, but even the Medici were not meremanipulators of pulls; they had some sort of public office, with somesort of legislated tenure of it. The King of New York is sovereign byforce of will alone, and he will reign in the voluntary submission of themajority. Is our national dictator to be of the same nature and quality?"

"It would be the scientific evolution, wouldn't it?"

The ladies listened with the perfunctory attention which women pay to anysort of inquiry which is not personal. Stoller had scarcely spoken yet;he now startled them all by demanding, with a sort of vindictive force, "Why shouldn't he have the power, if they're willing to let him?"

"Yes, " said General Triscoe, with a tilt of his head towards March. "That's what we must ask ourselves more and more. "

March leaned back in his chair, and looked up over his shoulder atStoller. "Well, I don't know. Do you think it's quite right for a man touse an unjust power, even if others are willing that he should?"

Stoller stopped with an air of bewilderment as if surprised on the pointof saying that he thought just this. He asked instead, "What's wrongabout it?"

"Well, that's one of those things that have to be felt, I suppose. But ifa man came to you, and offered to be your slave for a certainconsideration--say a comfortable house, and a steady job, that wasn't toohard--should you feel it morally right to accept the offer? I don't saythink it right, for there might be a kind of logic for it. "

Stoller seemed about to answer; he hesitated; and before he had made anyresponse, the curtain rose. 

XXXIV. 

There are few prettier things than Carlsbad by night from one of the manybridges which span the Tepl in its course through the town. If it is astarry night, the torrent glides swiftly away with an inverted firmamentin its bosom, to which the lamps along its shores and in the houses oneither side contribute a planetary splendor of their own. By nine o'clockeverything is hushed; not a wheel is heard at that dead hour; the fewfeet shuffling stealthily through the Alte Wiese whisper a caution ofsilence to those issuing with a less guarded tread from the opera; thelittle bowers that overhang the stream are as dark and mute as therestaurants across the way which serve meals in them by day; the wholeplace is as forsaken as other cities at midnight. People get quickly hometo bed, or if they have a mind to snatch a belated joy, they slip intothe Theater-Cafe, where the sleepy Frauleins serve them, in an exemplarydrowse, with plates of cold ham and bottles of the gently gaseous watersof Giesshubl. Few are of the bold badness which delights in a supper atSchwarzkopf's, and even these are glad of the drawn curtains which hidetheir orgy from the chance passer. 

The invalids of Burnamy's party kept together, strengthening themselvesin a mutual purpose not to be tempted to eat anything which was notstrictly 'kurgemass'. Mrs. March played upon the interest which each ofthem felt in his own case so artfully that she kept them talking of theircure, and left Burnamy and Miss Triscoe to a moment on the bridge, bywhich they profited, while the others strolled on, to lean against theparapet and watch the lights in the skies and the water, and be alonetogether. The stream shone above and below, and found its way out of andinto the darkness under the successive bridges; the town climbed into thenight with lamp-lit windows here and there, till the woods of thehill-sides darkened down to meet it, and fold it in an embrace from whichsome white edifice showed palely in the farthest gloom. 

He tried to make her think they could see that great iron crucifix whichwatches over it day and night from its piny cliff. He had a fancy for apoem, very impressionistic, which should convey the notion of thecrucifix's vigil. He submitted it to her; and they remained talking tillthe others had got out of sight and hearing; and she was letting him keepthe hand on her arm which he had put there to hold her from falling overthe parapet, when they were both startled by approaching steps, and avoice calling, "Look here! Who's running this supper party, anyway?"

His wife had detached March from her group for the mission, as soon asshe felt that the young people were abusing her kindness. They answeredhim with hysterical laughter, and Burnamy said, "Why, it's Mr. Stoller'streat, you know. "

At the restaurant, where the proprietor obsequiously met the party on thethreshold and bowed them into a pretty inner room, with a table set fortheir supper, Stoller had gained courage to play the host openly. Heappointed General Triscoe to the chief seat; he would have put hisdaughter next to him, if the girl had not insisted upon Mrs. March'shaving the place, and going herself to sit next to March, whom she saidshe had not been able to speak a word to the whole evening. But she didnot talk a great deal to him; he smiled to find how soon he dropped outof the conversation, and Burnamy, from his greater remoteness across thetable, dropped into it. He really preferred the study of Stoller, whoseinstinct of a greater worldly quality in the Triscoes interested him; hecould see him listening now to what General Triscoe was saying to Mrs. March, and now to what Burnamy was saying to Miss Triscoe; his strong, selfish face, as he turned it on the young people, expressed a mingledgrudge and greed that was very curious. 

Stoller's courage, which had come and gone at moments throughout, rose atthe end, and while they lingered at the table well on to the hour of ten, he said, in the sort of helpless offence he had with Burnamy, "What's thereason we can't all go out tomorrow to that old castle you was talkingabout?"

"To Engelhaus? I don't know any reason, as far as I'm concerned, "answered Burnamy; but he refused the initiative offered him, and Stollerwas obliged to ask March:

"You heard about it?"

"Yes. " General Triscoe was listening, and March added for him, "It wasthe hold of an old robber baron; Gustavus Adolphus knocked it down, andit's very picturesque, I believe. "

"It sounds promising, " said the general. "Where is it?"

"Isn't to-morrow our mineral bath?" Mrs. March interposed between herhusband and temptation. 

"No; the day after. Why, it's about ten or twelve miles out on the oldpostroad that Napoleon took for Prague. "

"Napoleon knew a good road when he saw it, " said the general, and healone of the company lighted a cigar. He was decidedly in favor of theexcursion, and he arranged for it with Stoller, whom he had the effect ofusing for his pleasure as if he were doing him a favor. They were six, and two carriages would take them: a two-spanner for four, and aone-spanner for two; they could start directly after dinners and get homein time for supper. 

Stoller asserted himself to say: "That's all right, then. I want you tobe my guests, and I'll see about the carriages. " He turned to Burnamy:"Will you order them?"

"Oh, " said the young fellow, with a sort of dryness, "the portier willget them. "

"I don't understand why General Triscoe was so willing to accept. Surely, he can't like that man!" said Mrs. March to her husband in their ownroom. 

"Oh, I fancy that wouldn't be essential. The general seems to me, capableof letting even an enemy serve his turn. Why didn't you speak, if youdidn't want to go?"

"Why didn't you?"

"I wanted to go. "

"And I knew it wouldn't do to let Miss Triscoe go alone; I could see thatshe wished to go. "

"Do you think Burnamy did?"

"He seemed rather indifferent. And yet he must have realized that hewould be with Miss Triscoe the whole afternoon. "

XXXV. 

If Burnamy and Miss Triscoe took the lead in the one-spanner, and theothers followed in the two-spanner, it was not from want of politeness onthe part of the young people in offering to give up their places to eachof their elders in turn. It would have been grotesque for either March orStoller to drive with the girl; for her father it was apparently noquestion, after a glance at the more rigid uprightness of the seat in theone-spanner; and he accepted the place beside Mrs. March on the back seatof the two-spanner without demur. He asked her leave to smoke, and thenhe scarcely spoke to her. But he talked to the two men in front of himalmost incessantly, haranguing them upon the inferiority of ourconditions and the futility of our hopes as a people, with the effect ofbewildering the cruder arrogance of Stoller, who could have got on withTriscoe's contempt for the worthlessness of our working-classes, but didnot know what to do with his scorn of the vulgarity and venality of theiremployers. He accused some of Stoller's most honored and enviedcapitalists of being the source of our worst corruptions, and guiltierthan the voting-cattle whom they bought and sold. 

"I think we can get rid of the whole trouble if we go at it the rightway, " Stoller said, diverging for the sake of the point he wished tobring in. "I believe in having the government run on business principles. They've got it here in Carlsbad, already, just the right sort of thing, and it works. I been lookin' into it, and I got this young man, yonder"--he twisted his hand in the direction of the one-spanner! "tohelp me put it in shape. I believe it's going to make our folks think, the best ones among them. Here!" He drew a newspaper out of his pocket, folded to show two columns in their full length, and handed it toTriscoe, who took it with no great eagerness, and began to run his eyeover it. "You tell me what you think of that. I've put it out for a kindof a feeler. I got some money in that paper, and I just thought I'd letour people see how a city can be managed on business principles. "

He kept his eye eagerly upon Triscoe, as if to follow his thought whilehe read, and keep him up to the work, and he ignored the Marches soentirely that they began in self-defence to talk with each other. 

Their carriage had climbed from Carlsbad in long irregular curves to thebreezy upland where the great highroad to Prague ran through fields ofharvest. They had come by heights and slopes of forest, where the serriedstems of the tall firs showed brown and whitish-blue and grew straight asstalks of grain; and now on either side the farms opened under a sky ofunwonted cloudlessness. Narrow strips of wheat and rye, which the menwere cutting with sickles, and the women in red bodices were binding, alternated with ribands of yellowing oats and grass, and breadths ofbeets and turnips, with now and then lengths of ploughed land. In themeadows the peasants were piling their carts with heavy rowen, the girlslifting the hay on the forks, and the men giving themselves the lighterlabor of ordering the load. From the upturned earth, where there ought tohave been troops of strutting crows, a few sombre ravens rose. But theycould not rob the scene of its gayety; it smiled in the sunshine withcolors which vividly followed the slope of the land till they were dimmedin the forests on the far-off mountains. Nearer and farther, the cottagesand villages shone in the valleys, or glimmered through the veils of thedistant haze. Over all breathed the keen pure air of the hills, with asentiment of changeless eld, which charmed March, back to his boyhood, where he lost the sense of his wife's presence, and answered her vaguely. She talked contentedly on in the monologue to which the wives ofabsent-minded men learn to resign themselves. They were both roused fromtheir vagary by the voice of General Triscoe. He was handing back thefolded newspaper to Stoller, and saying, with a queer look at him overhis glasses, "I should like to see what your contemporaries have to sayto all that. "

"Well, sir, " Stoller returned, "maybe I'll have the chance to show you. They got my instructions over there to send everything to me. "

Burnamy and Miss Triscoe gave little heed to the landscape as landscape. They agreed that the human interest was the great thing on a landscape, after all; but they ignored the peasants in the fields and meadows, whowere no more to them than the driver on the box, or the people in thetwo-spanner behind. They were talking of the hero and heroine of a novelthey had both read, and he was saying, "I suppose you think he was justlypunished. "

"Punished?" she repeated. "Why, they got married, after all!"

"Yes, but you could see that they were not going to be happy. "

"Then it seems to me that she was punished; too. "

"Well, yes; you might say that. The author couldn't help that. "

Miss Triscoe was silent a moment before she said:

"I always thought the author was rather hard on the hero. The girl wasvery exacting. "

"Why, " said Burnamy, "I supposed that women hated anything like deceptionin men too much to tolerate it at all. Of course, in this case, he didn'tdeceive her; he let her deceive herself; but wasn't that worse?"

"Yes, that was worse. She could have forgiven him for deceiving her. "

"Oh!"

"He might have had to do that. She wouldn't have minded his fibbingoutright, so much, for then it wouldn't have seemed to come from hisnature. But if he just let her believe what wasn't true, and didn't say aword to prevent her, of course it was worse. It showed something weak, something cowardly in him. "

Burnamy gave a little cynical laugh. "I suppose it did. But don't youthink it's rather rough, expecting us to have all the kinds of courage?"

"Yes, it is, " she assented. "That is why I say she was too exacting. Buta man oughn't to defend him. "

Burnamy's laugh had more pleasure in it, now. "Another woman might?"

"No. She might excuse him. "

He turned to look back at the two-spanner; it was rather far behind, andhe spoke to their driver bidding him go slowly till it caught up withthem. By the time it did so, they were so close to it that they coulddistinguish the lines of its wandering and broken walls. Ever since theyhad climbed from the wooded depths of the hills above Carlsbad to theopen plateau, it had shown itself in greater and greater detail. Thedetached mound of rock on which it stood rose like an island in the midstof the plain, and commanded the highways in every direction. 

"I believe, " Burnamy broke out, with a bitterness apparently relevant tothe ruin alone, "that if you hadn't required any quarterings of nobilityfrom him, Stoller would have made a good sort of robber baron. He's arobber baron by nature, now, and he wouldn't have any scruple in levyingtribute on us here in our one-spanner, if his castle was in good repairand his crossbowmen were not on a strike. But they would be on a strike, probably, and then he would lock them out, and employ none but non-unioncrossbowmen. "

If Miss Triscoe understood that he arraigned the morality as well as thecivility of his employer, she did not take him more seriously than hemeant, apparently, for she smiled as she said, "I don't see how you canhave anything to do with him, if you feel so about him. "

"Oh, " Burnamy replied in kind, "he buys my poverty and not my will. Andperhaps if I thought better of myself, I should respect him more. "

"Have you been doing something very wicked?"

"What should you have to say to me, if I had?" he bantered. 

"Oh, I should have nothing at all to say to you, " she mocked back. 

They turned a corner of the highway, and drove rattling through a villagestreet up a long slope to the rounded hill which it crowned. A church atits base looked out upon an irregular square. 

A gaunt figure of a man, with a staring mask, which seemed to hide adarkling mind within, came out of the church, and locked it behind him. He proved to be the sacristan, and the keeper of all the village's claimsupon the visitors' interest; he mastered, after a moment, their wishes inrespect to the castle, and showed the path that led to it; at the top, hesaid, they would find a custodian of the ruins who would admit them. 

XXXVI. 

The path to the castle slanted upward across the shoulder of the hill, to a certain point, and there some rude stone steps mounted moredirectly. Wilding lilac-bushes, as if from some forgotten garden, bordered the ascent; the chickory opened its blue flower; the cleanbitter odor of vermouth rose from the trodden turf; but Nature spreads nosuch lavish feast in wood or field in the Old World as she spoils us within the New; a few kinds, repeated again and again, seem to be all herstore, and man must make the most of them. Miss Triscoe seemed to findflowers enough in the simple bouquet which Burnamy put together for her. She took it, and then gave it back to him, that she might have both handsfor her skirt, and so did him two favors. 

A superannuated forester of the nobleman who owns the ruin opened a gatefor the party at the top, and levied a tax of thirty kreutzers each uponthem, for its maintenance. The castle, by his story, had descended fromrobber sire to robber son, till Gustavus knocked it to pieces in thesixteenth century; three hundred years later, the present owner restoredit; and now its broken walls and arches, built of rubble mixed withbrick, and neatly pointed up with cement, form a ruin satisfyinglypermanent. The walls were not of great extent, but such as they were theyenclosed several dungeons and a chapel, all underground, and a cisternwhich once enabled the barons and their retainers to water their wine intime of siege. 

From that height they could overlook the neighboring highways in everydirection, and could bring a merchant train to, with a shaft from acrossbow, or a shot from an arquebuse, at pleasure. With GeneralTriscoe's leave, March praised the strategic strength of the uniqueposition, which he found expressive of the past, and yet suggestive ofthe present. It was more a difference in method than anything else thatdistinguished the levy of customs by the authorities then and now. Whatwas the essential difference, between taking tribute of travellerspassing on horseback, and collecting dues from travellers arriving bysteamer? They did not pay voluntarily in either case; but it might beproof of progress that they no longer fought the customs officials. 

"Then you believe in free trade, " said Stoller, severely. 

"No. I am just inquiring which is the best way of enforcing the tarifflaws. "

"I saw in the Paris Chronicle, last night, " said Miss Triscoe, "thatpeople are kept on the docks now for hours, and ladies cry at the waytheir things are tumbled over by the inspectors. "

"It's shocking, " said Mrs. March, magisterially. 

"It seems to be a return to the scenes of feudal times, " her husbandresumed. "But I'm glad the travellers make no resistance. I'm opposed toprivate war as much as I am to free trade. "

"It all comes round to the same thing at last, " said General Triscoe. "Your precious humanity--"

"Oh, I don't claim it exclusively, " March protested. 

"Well, then, our precious humanity is like a man that has lost his road. He thinks he is finding his way out, but he is merely rounding on hiscourse, and coming back to where he started. "

Stoller said, "I think we ought to make it so rough for them, over here, that they will come to America and set up, if they can't stand theduties. "

"Oh, we ought to make it rough for them anyway, " March consented. 

If Stoller felt his irony, he did not know what to answer. He followedwith his eyes the manoeuvre by which Burnamy and Miss Triscoe eliminatedthemselves from the discussion, and strayed off to another corner of theruin, where they sat down on the turf in the shadow of the wall; a thin, upland breeze drew across them, but the sun was hot. The land fell awayfrom the height, and then rose again on every side in carpetlike fieldsand in long curving bands, whose parallel colors passed unblended intothe distance. "I don't suppose, " Burnamy said, "that life ever does muchbetter than this, do you? I feel like knocking on a piece of wood andsaying 'Unberufen. ' I might knock on your bouquet; that's wood. "

"It would spoil the flowers, " she said, looking down at them in her belt. She looked up and their eyes met. 

"I wonder, " he said, presently, "what makes us always have a feeling ofdread when we are happy?"

"Do you have that, too?" she asked. 

"Yes. Perhaps it's because we know that change must come, and it must befor the worse. "

"That must be it. I never thought of it before, though. "

"If we had got so far in science that we could predict psychologicalweather, and could know twenty-four hours ahead when a warm wave of blissor a cold wave of misery was coming, and prepare for smiles and tearsbeforehand--it may come to that. "

"I hope it won't. I'd rather not know when I was to be happy; it wouldspoil the pleasure; and wouldn't be any compensation when it was theother way. "

A shadow fell across them, and Burnamy glanced round to see Stollerlooking down at them, with a slant of the face that brought his aquilineprofile into relief. "Oh! Have a turf, Mr. Stoller?" he called gayly upto him. 

"I guess we've seen about all there is, " he answered. "Hadn't we betterbe going?" He probably did not mean to be mandatory. 

"All right, " said Burnamy, and he turned to speak to Miss Triscoe againwithout further notice of him. 

They all descended to the church at the foot of the hill where the weirdsacristan was waiting to show them the cold, bare interior, and toaccount for its newness with the fact that the old church had been burnt, and this one built only a few years before. Then he locked the doorsafter them, and ran forward to open against their coming the chapel ofthe village cemetery, which they were to visit after they had fortifiedthemselves for it at the village cafe. 

They were served by a little hunch-back maid; and she told them who livedin the chief house of the village. It was uncommonly pretty; where allthe houses were picturesque, and she spoke of it with respect as thedwelling of a rich magistrate who was clearly the great man of the place. March admired the cat which rubbed against her skirt while she stood andtalked, and she took his praises modestly for the cat; but they wroughtupon the envy, of her brother so that he ran off to the garden, and cameback with two fat, sleepy-eyed puppies which he held up, with an armacross each of their stomachs, for the acclaim of the spectators. 

"Oh, give him something!" Mrs. March entreated. "He's such a dear. "

"No, no! I am not going to have my little hunchback and her cat outdone, "he refused; and then he was about to yield. 

"Hold on!" said Stoller, assuming the host. "I got the change. "

He gave the boy a few kreutzers, when Mrs. March had meant her husband toreward his naivete with half a florin at least; but he seemed to feelthat he had now ingratiated himself with the ladies, and he put himselfin charge of them for the walk to the cemetery chapel; he made MissTriscoe let him carry her jacket when she found it warm. 

The chapel is dedicated to the Holy Trinity, and the Jesuit brother whodesigned it, two or three centuries ago, indulged a devotional fancy inthe triangular form of the structure and the decorative details. Everything is three-cornered; the whole chapel, to begin with, and thenthe ark of the high altar in the middle of it, and each of the threeside-altars. The clumsy baroque taste of the architecture is a Germanversion of the impulse that was making Italy fantastic at the time; thecarving is coarse, and the color harsh and unsoftened by years, though itis broken and obliterated in places. 

The sacristan said that the chapel was never used for anything butfuneral services, and he led the way out into the cemetery, where hewished to display the sepultural devices. The graves here were plantedwith flowers, and some were in a mourning of black pansies; but a spacefenced apart from the rest held a few neglected mounds, overgrown withweeds and brambles: This space, he said, was for suicides; but to Marchit was not so ghastly as the dapper grief of certain tombs in consecratedground where the stones had photographs of the dead on porcelain let intothem. One was the picture of a beautiful young woman, who had been thewife of the local magnate; an eternal love was vowed to her in theinscription, but now, the sacristan said, with nothing of irony, themagnate was married again, and lived in that prettiest house of thevillage. He seemed proud of the monument, as the thing worthiest theattention of the strangers, and he led them with less apparenthopefulness to the unfinished chapel representing a Gethsemane, with thefigure of Christ praying and his apostles sleeping. It is a subject muchcelebrated in terra-cotta about Carlsbad, and it was not a novelty to hisparty; still, from its surroundings, it had a fresh pathos, and Marchtried to make him understand that they appreciated it. He knew that hiswife wished the poor man to think he had done them a great favor inshowing it; he had been touched with all the vain shows of grief in thepoor, ugly little place; most of all he had felt the exile of those whohad taken their own lives and were parted in death from the more patientsufferers who had waited for God to take them. With a curious, unpainfulself-analysis he noted that the older members of the party, who in thecourse of nature were so much nearer death, did not shrink from itsshows; but the young girl and the young man had not borne to look onthem, and had quickly escaped from the place, somewhere outside the gate. Was it the beginning, the promise of that reconciliation with death whichnature brings to life at last, or was it merely the effect, or defect, ofossified sensibilities, of toughened nerves?

"That is all?" he asked of the spectral sacristan. 

"That is all, " the man said, and March felt in his pocket for a coincommensurate to the service he had done them; it ought to be somethinghandsome. 

"No, no, " said Stoller, detecting his gesture. "Your money a'n't good. "

He put twenty or thirty kreutzers into the hand of the man, who regardedthem with a disappointment none the less cruel because it was so patient. In France, he would have been insolent; in Italy, he would have franklysaid it was too little; here, he merely looked at the money and whispereda sad "Danke. "

Burnamy and Miss Triscoe rose from the grassy bank outside where theywere sitting, and waited for the elders to get into their two-spanner. 

"Oh, have I lost my glove in there?" said Mrs. March, looking at herhands and such parts of her dress as a glove might cling to. 

"Let me go and find it for you, " Burnamy entreated. 

"Well, " she consented, and she added, "If the sacristan has found it, give him something for me something really handsome, poor fellow. "

As Burnamy passed her, she let him see that she had both her gloves, andher heart yearned upon him for his instant smile of intelligence: somemen would have blundered out that she had the lost glove in her hand. Hecame back directly, saying, "No, he didn't find it. "

She laughed, and held both gloves up. "No wonder! I had it all the time. Thank you ever so much. "

"How are we going to ride back?" asked Stoller. 

Burnamy almost turned pale; Miss Triscoe smiled impenetrably. No one elsespoke, and Mrs. March said, with placid authority, "Oh, I think the waywe came, is best. "

"Did that absurd creature, " she apostrophized her husband as soon as shegot him alone after their arrival at Pupp's, "think I was going to lethim drive back with Agatha?"

"I wonder, " said March, "if that's what Burnamy calls her now?"

"I shall despise him if it isn't. "

XXXVII. 

Burnamy took up his mail to Stoller after the supper which they had eatenin a silence natural with two men who have been off on a picnic together. He did not rise from his writing-desk when Burnamy came in, and the youngman did not sit down after putting his letters before him. He said, withan effort of forcing himself to speak at once, "I have looked through thepapers, and there is something that I think you ought to see. "

"What do you mean?" said Stoller. 

Burnamy laid down three or four papers opened to pages where certainarticles were strongly circumscribed in ink. The papers varied, but theireditorials did not, in purport at least. Some were grave and some weregay; one indignantly denounced; another affected an ironicalbewilderment; the third simply had fun with the Hon. Jacob Stoller. Theyall, however, treated his letter on the city government of Carlsbad asthe praise of municipal socialism, and the paper which had fun with himgleefully congratulated the dangerous classes on the accession of theHonorable Jacob to their ranks. 

Stoller read the articles, one after another, with parted lips andgathering drops of perspiration on his upper lip, while Burnamy waited onfoot. He flung the papers all down at last. "Why, they're a pack offools! They don't know what they're talking about! I want city governmentcarried on on business principles, by the people, for the people. I don'tcare what they say! I know I'm right, and I'm going ahead on this line ifit takes all--" The note of defiance died out of his voice at the sightof Burnamy's pale face. "What's the matter with you?"

"There's nothing the matter with me. "

"Do you mean to tell me it is"--he could not bring himself to use theword--"what they say?"

"I suppose, " said Burnamy, with a dry mouth, "it's what you may callmunicipal socialism. "

Stoller jumped from his seat. "And you knew it when you let me do it?"

"I supposed you knew what you were about. "

"It's a lie!" Stoller advanced upon him, wildly, and Burnamy took a stepbackward. 

"Look out!" shouted Burnamy. "You never asked me anything about it. Youtold me what you wanted done, and I did it. How could I believe you weresuch an ignoramus as not to know the a b c of the thing you were talkingabout?" He added, in cynical contempt, "But you needn't worry. You canmake it right with the managers by spending a little more money than youexpected to spend. "

Stoller started as if the word money reminded him of something. "I cantake care of myself, young man. How much do I owe you?"

"Nothing!" said Burnamy, with an effort for grandeur which failed him. 

The next morning as the Marches sat over their coffee at the Posthof, hecame dragging himself toward them with such a haggard air that Mrs. Marchcalled, before he reached their table, "Why, Mr. Burnamy, what's thematter?"

He smiled miserably. "Oh, I haven't slept very well. May I have my coffeewith you? I want to tell you something; I want you to make me. But Ican't speak till the coffee comes. Fraulein!" he besought a waitressgoing off with a tray near them. "Tell Lili, please, to bring me somecoffee--only coffee. "

He tried to make some talk about the weather, which was rainy, and theMarches helped him, but the poor endeavor lagged wretchedly in theinterval between the ordering and the coming of the coffee. "Ah, thankyou, Lili, " he said, with a humility which confirmed Mrs. March in herinstant belief that he had been offering himself to Miss Triscoe and beenrejected. After gulping his coffee, he turned to her: "I want to saygood-by. I'm going away. "

"From Carlsbad?" asked Mrs. March with a keen distress. 

The water came into his eyes. "Don't, don't be good to me, Mrs. March! Ican't stand it. But you won't, when you know. "

He began to speak of Stoller, first to her, but addressing himself moreand more to the intelligence of March, who let him go on withoutquestion, and laid a restraining hand upon his wife when he saw her aboutto prompt him. At the end, "That's all, " he said, huskily, and then heseemed to be waiting for March's comment. He made none, and the youngfellow was forced to ask, "Well, what do you think, Mr. March?"

"What do you think yourself?"

"I think, I behaved badly, " said Burnamy, and a movement of protest fromMrs. March nerved him to add: "I could make out that it was not mybusiness to tell him what he was doing; but I guess it was; I guess Iought to have stopped him, or given him a chance to stop himself. Isuppose I might have done it, if he had treated me decently when I turnedup a day late, here; or hadn't acted toward me as if I were a hand in hisbuggy-works that had come in an hour after the whistle sounded. "

He set his teeth, and an indignant sympathy shone in Mrs. March's eyes;but her husband only looked the more serious. 

He asked gently, "Do you offer that fact as an explanation, or as ajustification. "

Burnamy laughed forlornly. "It certainly wouldn't justify me. You mightsay that it made the case all the worse for me. " March forbore to say, and Burnamy went on. "But I didn't suppose they would be onto him soquick, or perhaps at all. I thought--if I thought anything--that it wouldamuse some of the fellows in the office, who know about those things. " Hepaused, and in March's continued silence he went on. "The chance was onein a hundred that anybody else would know where he had brought up. "

"But you let him take that chance, " March suggested. 

"Yes, I let him take it. Oh, you know how mixed all these things are!"

"Yes. "

"Of course I didn't think it out at the time. But I don't deny that I hada satisfaction in the notion of the hornets' nest he was poking his thickhead into. It makes me sick, now, to think I had. I oughtn't to have lethim; he was perfectly innocent in it. After the letter went, I wanted totell him, but I couldn't; and then I took the chances too. I don'tbelieve he could have ever got forward in politics; he's too honest--orhe isn't dishonest in the right way. But that doesn't let me out. I don'tdefend myself! I did wrong; I behaved badly. But I've suffered for it. 

"I've had a foreboding all the time that it would come to the worst, andfelt like a murderer with his victim when I've been alone with Stoller. When I could get away from him I could shake it off, and even believethat it hadn't happened. You can't think what a nightmare it's been!Well, I've ruined Stoller politically, but I've ruined myself, too. I'vespoiled my own life; I've done what I can never explain to--to the peopleI want to have believe in me; I've got to steal away like the thief I am. Good-by!" He jumped to his feet, and put out his hand to March, and thento Mrs. March. 

"Why, you're not going away now!" she cried, in a daze. 

"Yes, I am. I shall leave Carlsbad on the eleven-o'clock train. I don'tthink I shall see you again. " He clung to her hand. "If you see GeneralTriscoe--I wish you'd tell them I couldn't--that I had to--that I wascalled away suddenly--Good-by!" He pressed her hand and dropped it, andmixed with the crowd. Then he came suddenly back, with a final appeal toMarch: "Should you--do you think I ought to see Stoller, and--and tellhim I don't think I used him fairly?"

"You ought to know--" March began. 

But before he could say more, Burnamy said, "You're right, " and was offagain. 

"Oh, how hard you were with him, my dear!" Mrs. March lamented. 

"I wish, " he said, "if our boy ever went wrong that some one would be astrue to him as I was to that poor fellow. He condemned himself; and hewas right; he has behaved very badly. "

"You always overdo things so, when you act righteously!"

"Now, Isabel!"

"Oh, yes, I know what you will say. But I should have tempered justicewith mercy. "

Her nerves tingled with pity for Burnamy, but in her heart she was gladthat her husband had had strength to side with him against himself, andshe was proud of the forbearance with which he had done it. In theirearlier married life she would have confidently taken the initiative onall moral questions. She still believed that she was better fitted fortheir decision by her Puritan tradition and her New England birth, butonce in a great crisis when it seemed a question of their living, she hadweakened before it, and he, with no such advantages, had somehow met theissue with courage and conscience. She could not believe he did so byinspiration, but she had since let him take the brunt of all such issuesand the responsibility. He made no reply, and she said: "I suppose you'lladmit now there was always something peculiar in the poor boy's manner toStoller. "

He would confess no more than that there ought to have been. "I don't seehow he could stagger through with that load on his conscience. I'm notsure I like his being able to do so. "

She was silent in the misgiving which she shared with him, but she said:"I wonder how far it has gone with him and Miss Triscoe?"

"Well, from his wanting you to give his message to the general in theplural--"

"Don't laugh! It's wicked to laugh! It's heartless!" she cried, hysterically. "What will he do, poor fellow?"

"I've an idea that he will light on his feet, somehow. But, at any rate, he's doing the right thing in going to own up to Stoller. "

"Oh, Stoller! I care nothing for Stoller! Don't speak to me of Stoller!"

Burnamy fond the Bird of Prey, as he no longer had the heart to call him, walking up and down in his room like an eagle caught in a trap. Heerected his crest fiercely enough, though, when the young fellow came inat his loudly shouted, "Herein!"

"What do you want?" he demanded, brutally. 

This simplified Burnamy's task, while it made it more loathsome. Heanswered not much less brutally, "I want to tell you that I think I usedyou badly, that I let you betray yourself, that I feel myself to blame. "He could have added, "Curse you!" without change of tone. 

Stoller sneered in a derision that showed his lower teeth like a dog'swhen he snarls. "You want to get back!"

"No, " said Burnamy, mildly, and with increasing sadness as he spoke. "Idon't want to get back. Nothing would induce me. I'm going away on thefirst train. "

"Well, you're not!" shouted Stoller. "You've lied me into this--"

"Look out!" Burnamy turned white. 

"Didn't you lie me into it, if you let me fool myself, as you say?"Stoller pursued, and Burnamy felt himself weaken through his wrath. "Well, then, you got to lie me out of it. I been going over the damnthing, all night--and you can do it for me. I know you can do it, " hegave way in a plea that was almost a whimper. "Look here! You see if youcan't. I'll make it all right with you. I'll pay you whatever you thinkis right--whatever you say. "

"Oh!" said Burnamy, in otherwise unutterable disgust. 

"You kin, " Stoller went on, breaking down more and more into his adoptedHoosier, in the stress of his anxiety. "I know you kin, Mr. Burnamy. " Hepushed the paper containing his letter into Burnamy's hands, and pointedout a succession of marked passages. "There! And here! And this place!Don't you see how you could make out that it meant something else, or wasjust ironical?" He went on to prove how the text might be given thecomplexion he wished, and Burnamy saw that he had really thought it notimpossibly out. "I can't put it in writing as well as you; but I've doneall the work, and all you've got to do is to give it some of them turnsof yours. I'll cable the fellows in our office to say I've beenmisrepresented, and that my correction is coming. We'll get it into shapehere together, and then I'll cable that. I don't care for the money. AndI'll get our counting-room to see this scoundrel"--he picked up the paperthat had had fun with him--"and fix him all right, so that he'll ask fora suspension of public opinion, and--You see, don't you?"

The thing did appeal to Burnamy. If it could be done, it would enable himto make Stoller the reparation he longed to make him more than anythingelse in the world. But he heard himself saying, very gently, almosttenderly, "It might be done, Mr. Stoller. But I couldn't do it. Itwouldn't be honest--for me. "

"Yah!" yelled Stoller, and he crushed the paper into a wad and flung itinto Burnamy's face. "Honest, you damn humbug! You let me in for this, when you knew I didn't mean it, and now you won't help me out because ita'n't honest! Get out of my room, and get out quick before I--"

He hurled himself toward Burnamy, who straightened himself, with "If youdare!" He knew that he was right in refusing; but he knew that Stollerwas right, too, and that he had not meant the logic of what he had saidin his letter, and of what Burnamy had let him imply. He braved Stoller'sonset, and he left his presence untouched, but feeling as little a moralhero as he well could. 

XXXVIII. 

General Triscoe woke in the bad humor of an elderly man after a day'spleasure, and in the self-reproach of a pessimist who has lost his pointof view for a time, and has to work back to it. He began at the belatedbreakfast with his daughter when she said, after kissing him gayly, inthe small two-seated bower where they breakfasted at their hotel whenthey did not go to the Posthof, "Didn't you have a nice time, yesterday, papa?"

She sank into the chair opposite, and beamed at him across the littleiron table, as she lifted the pot to pour out his coffee. 

"What do you call a nice time?" he temporized, not quite able to resisther gayety. 

"Well, the kind of time I had. "

"Did you get rheumatism from sitting on the grass? I took cold in thatold church, and the tea at that restaurant must have been brewed in abrass kettle. I suffered all night from it. And that ass from Illinois--"

"Oh, poor papa! I couldn't go with Mr. Stoller alone, but I might havegone in the two-spanner with him and let you have Mr. Or Mrs. March inthe one-spanner. "

"I don't know. Their interest in each other isn't so interesting to otherpeople as they seem to think. "

"Do you feel that way really, papa? Don't you like their being so much inlove still?"

"At their time of life? Thank you it's bad enough in young people. "

The girl did not answer; she appeared altogether occupied in pouring outher father's coffee. 

He tasted it, and then he drank pretty well all of it; but he said, as heput his cup down, "I don't know what they make this stuff of. I wish Ihad a cup of good, honest American coffee. "

"Oh, there's nothing like American food!" said his daughter, with so muchconciliation that he looked up sharply. 

But whatever he might have been going to say was at least postponed bythe approach of a serving-maid, who brought a note to his daughter. Sheblushed a little at sight of it, and then tore it open and read:

"I am going away from Carlsbad, for a fault of my own which forbids me tolook you in the face. If you wish to know the worst of me, ask Mrs. March. I have no heart to tell you. "

Agatha read these mystifying words of Burnamy's several times over in asilent absorption with them which left her father to look after himself, and he had poured out a second cup of coffee with his own hand, and wasreaching for the bread beside her before she came slowly back to a senseof his presence. 

"Oh, excuse me, papa, " she said, and she gave him the butter. "Here's avery strange letter from Mr. Burnamy, which I think you'd better see. "She held the note across the table to him, and watched his face as heread it. 

After he had read it twice, he turned the sheet over, as people do withletters that puzzle them, in the vain hope of something explanatory onthe back. Then he looked up and asked: "What do you suppose he's beendoing?"

"I don't believe he's been doing anything. It's something that Mr. Stoller's been doing to him. "

"I shouldn't infer that from his own words. What makes you think thetrouble is with Stoller?"

"He said--he said yesterday--something about being glad to be throughwith him, because he disliked him so much he was always afraid ofwronging him. And that proves that now Mr. Stoller has made him believethat he's done wrong, and has worked upon him till he does believe it. "

"It proves nothing of the kind, " said the general, recurring to the note. After reading it again, he looked keenly at her: "Am I to understand thatyou have given him the right to suppose you would want to know theworst--or the best of him?"

The girl's eyes fell, and she pushed her knife against her plate. Shebegan: "No--"

"Then confound his impudence!" the general broke out. "What business hashe to write to you at all about this?"

"Because he couldn't go away without it!" she returned; and she met herfather's eye courageously. "He had a right to think we were his friends;and if he has done wrong, or is in disgrace any way, isn't it manly ofhim to wish to tell us first himself?"

Her father could not say that it was not. But he could and did say, verysceptically: "Stuff! Now, see here, Agatha: what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to see Mrs. March, and then--"

"You mustn't do anything of the kind, my dear, " said her father, gently. "You've no right to give yourself away to that romantic old goose. " Heput up his hand to interrupt her protest. "This thing has got to be goneto the bottom of. But you're not to do it. I will see March myself. Wemust consider your dignity in this matter--and mine. And you may as wellunderstand that I'm not going to have any nonsense. It's got to bemanaged so that it can't be supposed we're anxious about it, one way orthe other, or that he was authorized to write to you in this way--"

"No, no! He oughtn't to have done so. He was to blame. He couldn't havewritten to you, though, papa--"

"Well, I don't know why. But that's no reason why we should let it beunderstood that he has written to you. I will see March; and I willmanage to see his wife, too. I shall probably find them in thereading-room at Pupp's, and--"

The Marches were in fact just coming in from their breakfast at thePosthof, and he met them at the door of Pupp's, where they all sat downon one of the iron settees of the piazza, and began to ask one anotherquestions of their minds about the pleasure of the day before, and tobeat about the bush where Burnamy lurked in their common consciousness. 

Mrs. March was not able to keep long from starting him. "You knew, " shesaid, "that Mr. Burnamy had left us?"

"Left! Why?" asked the general. 

She was a woman of resource, but in a case like this she found it best totrust her husband's poverty of invention. She looked at him, and heanswered for her with a promptness that made her quake at first, butfinally seemed the only thing, if not the best thing: "He's had sometrouble with Stoller. " He went on to tell the general just what thetrouble was. 

At the end the general grunted as from an uncertain mind. "You think he'sbehaved badly. "

"I think he's behaved foolishly--youthfully. But I can understand howstrongly he was tempted. He could say that he was not authorized to stopStoller in his mad career. "

At this Mrs. March put her hand through her husband's arm. 

"I'm not so sure about that, " said the general. 

March added: "Since I saw him this morning, I've heard something thatdisposes me to look at his performance in a friendlier light. It'ssomething that Stoller told me himself; to heighten my sense of Burnamy'swickedness. He seems to have felt that I ought to know what a serpent Iwas cherishing in my bosom, " and he gave Triscoe the facts of Burnamy'sinjurious refusal to help Stoller put a false complexion on the opinionshe had allowed him ignorantly to express. 

The general grunted again. "Of course he had to refuse, and he hasbehaved like a gentleman so far. But that doesn't justify him in havinglet Stoller get himself into the scrape. "

"No, " said March. "It's a tough nut for the casuist to try his tooth on. And I must say I feel sorry for Stoller. "

Mrs. March plucked her hand from his arm. "I don't, one bit. He wasthoroughly selfish from first to last. He has got just what he deserved. "

"Ah, very likely, " said her husband. "The question is about Burnamy'spart in giving him his deserts; he had to leave him to them, of course. "

The general fixed her with the impenetrable glitter of his eye-glasses, and left the subject as of no concern to him. "I believe, " he said, rising, "I'll have a look at some of your papers, " and he went into thereading-room. 

"Now, " said Mrs. March, "he will go home and poison that poor girl'smind. And, you will have yourself to thank for prejudicing him againstBurnamy. "

"Then why didn't you do it yourself, my dear?" he teased; but he wasreally too sorry for the whole affair, which he nevertheless enjoyed asan ethical problem. 

The general looked so little at the papers that before March went off forhis morning walk he saw him come out of the reading-room and take his waydown the Alte Wiese. He went directly back to his daughter, and reportedBurnamy's behavior with entire exactness. He dwelt upon his making thebest of a bad business in refusing to help Stoller out of it, dishonorably and mendaciously; but he did not conceal that it was a badbusiness. 

"Now, you know all about it, " he said at the end, "and I leave the wholething to you. If you prefer, you can see Mrs. March. I don't know but I'drather you'd satisfy yourself--"

"I will not see Mrs. March. Do you think I would go back of you in thatway? I am satisfied now. "

XXXIX. 

Instead of Burnamy, Mrs. Adding and her son now breakfasted with theMarches at the Posthof, and the boy was with March throughout the day agood deal. He rectified his impressions of life in Carlsbad by March'sgreater wisdom and experience, and did his best to anticipate hisopinions and conform to his conclusions. This was not easy, for sometimeshe could not conceal from himself, that March's opinions were whimsical, and his conclusions fantastic; and he could not always conceal from Marchthat he was matching them with Kenby's on some points, and suffering fromtheir divergence. He came to join the sage in his early visit to thesprings, and they walked up and down talking; and they went off togetheron long strolls in which Rose was proud to bear him company. He waspatient of the absences from which he was often answered, and he learnedto distinguish between the earnest and the irony of which March's repliesseemed to be mixed. He examined him upon many features of Germancivilization, but chiefly upon the treatment of women in it; and uponthis his philosopher was less satisfactory than he could have wished himto be. He tried to excuse his trifling as an escape from the painfulstress of questions which he found so afflicting himself; but in thematter of the woman-and-dog teams, this was not easy. March owned thatthe notion of their being yokemates was shocking; but he urged that itwas a stage of evolution, and a distinct advance upon the time when womendragged the carts without the help of the dogs; and that the time mightnot be far distant when the dogs would drag the carts without the help ofthe women. 

Rose surmised a joke, and he tried to enjoy it, but inwardly he wastroubled by his friend's apparent acceptance of unjust things on theirpicturesque side. Once as they were sauntering homeward by the brink ofthe turbid Eger, they came to a man lying on the grass with a pipe in hismouth, and lazily watching from under his fallen lids the cows grazing bythe river-side, while in a field of scraggy wheat a file of women werereaping a belated harvest with sickles, bending wearily over to clutchthe stems together and cut them with their hooked blades. "Ah, delightful!" March took off his hat as if to salute the pleasant sight. 

"But don't you think, Mr. March, " the boy ventured, "that the man hadbetter be cutting the wheat, and letting the women watch the cows?"

"Well, I don't know. There are more of them; and he wouldn't be half sograceful as they are, with that flow of their garments, and the sway oftheir aching backs. " The boy smiled sadly, and March put his hand on hisshoulder as they walked on. "You find a lot of things in Europe that needputting right, don't you, Rose?"

"Yes; I know it's silly. "

"Well, I'm not sure. But I'm afraid it's useless. You see, these oldcustoms go such a way back, and are so grounded in conditions. We thinkthey might be changed, if those who rule could be got to see how crueland ugly they are; but probably they couldn't. I'm afraid that theEmperor of Austria himself couldn't change them, in his sovereignplenitude of power. The Emperor is only an old custom too, and he's asmuch grounded in the conditions as any. " This was the serious way Rosefelt that March ought always to talk; and he was too much grieved tolaugh when he went on. "The women have so much of the hard work to do, over here, because the emperors need the men for their armies. Theycouldn't let their men cut wheat unless it was for their officers'horses, in the field of some peasant whom it would ruin. "

If Mrs. March was by she would not allow him to work these paradoxes forthe boy's confusion. She said the child adored him, and it was asacrilege to play with his veneration. She always interfered to save him, but with so little logic though so much justice that Rose suffered ahumiliation from her championship, and was obliged from a sense ofself-respect to side with the mocker. She understood this, andmagnanimously urged it as another reason why her husband should nottrifle with Rose's ideal of him; to make his mother laugh at him waswicked. 

"Oh, I'm not his only ideal, " March protested. "He adores Kenby too, andevery now and then he brings me to book with a text from Kenby's gospel. "

Mrs. March caught her breath. "Kenby! Do you really think, then, thatshe--"

"Oh, hold on, now! It isn't a question of Mrs. Adding; and I don't sayRose had an eye on poor old Kenby as a step-father. I merely want you tounderstand that I'm the object of a divided worship, and that when I'moff duty as an ideal I don't see why I shouldn't have the fun of makingMrs. Adding laugh. You can't pretend she isn't wrapped up in the boy. You've said that yourself. "

"Yes, she's wrapped up in him; she'd give her life for him; but she is solight. I didn't suppose she was so light; but it's borne in upon me moreand more. "

They were constantly seeing Rose and his mother, in the sort of abeyancethe Triscoes had fallen into. One afternoon the Addings came to Mrs. March's room to look from her windows at a parade of bicyclers' clubsfrom the neighboring towns. The spectacle prospered through its firsthalf-hour, with the charm which German sentiment and ingenuity, are ableto lend even a bicycle parade. The wheelmen and wheelwomen filed by onmachines wreathed with flowers and ribbons, and decked with streamingbanners. Here and there one sat under a moving arch of blossoms, or in abower of leaves and petals, and they were all gay with their clubcostumes and insignia. In the height of the display a sudden mountainshower gathered and broke upon them. They braved it till it became adrenching down-pour; then they leaped from their machines and fled to anyshelter they could find, under trees and in doorways. The men used theirgreater agility to get the best places, and kept them; the women made noappeal for them by word or look, but took the rain in the open as if theyexpected nothing else. 

Rose watched the scene with a silent intensity which March interpreted. "There's your chance, Rose. Why don't you go down and rebuke thosefellows?"

Rose blushed and shrank away without answer, and Mrs. March promptlyattacked her husband in his behalf. "Why don't you go and rebuke themyourself?"

"Well, for one thing, there isn't any conversation in my phrase-bookBetween an indignant American Herr and a Party of German Wheelmen whohave taken Shelter from the Rain and are keeping the Wheelwomen out inthe Wet. " Mrs. Adding shrieked her delight, and he was flattered intogoing on. "For another thing, I think it's very well for you ladies torealize from an object-lesson of this sort what spoiled children of ourcivilization you are. It ought to make you grateful for your privileges. "

"There is something in that, " Mrs. Adding joyfully consented. 

"Oh, there is no civilization but ours, " said Mrs. March, in a burst ofvindictive patriotism. "I am more and more convinced of it the longer Istay in Europe. "

"Perhaps that's why we like to stay so long in Europe; it strengthens usin the conviction that America is the only civilized country in theworld, " said March. 

The shower passed as quickly as it had gathered, and the band which ithad silenced for a moment burst forth again in the music which fills theCarlsbad day from dawn till dusk. Just now, it began to play a pot pourriof American airs; at the end some unseen Americans under the trees belowclapped and cheered. 

"That was opportune of the band, " said March. "It must have been atelepathic impulse from our patriotism in the director. But a pot pourriof American airs is like that tablet dedicating the American Park up hereon the Schlossberg, which is signed by six Jews and one Irishman. Theonly thing in this medley that's the least characteristic or original isDixie; and I'm glad the South has brought us back into the Union. "

"You don't know one note from another, my dear, " said his wife. 

"I know the 'Washington Post. '"

"And don't you call that American?"

"Yes, if Sousa is an American name; I should have thought it wasPortuguese. "

"Now that sounds a little too much like General Triscoe's pessimism, "said Mrs. March; and she added: "But whether we have any nationalmelodies or not, we don't poke women out in the rain and keep themsoaking!"

"No, we certainly don't, " he assented, with such a well-studied effect ofyielding to superior logic that Mrs. Adding screamed for joy. 

The boy had stolen out of the room, and he said, "I hope Rose isn'tacting on my suggestion?"

"I hate to have you tease him, dearest, " his wife interposed. 

"Oh, no, " the mother said, laughing still, but with a note of tendernessin her laugh, which dropped at last to a sigh. "He's too much afraid oflese-majesty, for that. But I dare say he couldn't stand the sight. He'squeer. "

"He's beautiful!" said Mrs. March. 

"He's good, " the mother admitted. "As good as the day's long. He's nevergiven me a moment's trouble--but he troubles me. If you can understand!"

"Oh, I do understand!" Mrs. March returned. "By his innocence, you mean. That is the worst of children. Their innocence breaks our hearts andmakes us feel ourselves such dreadful old things. "

"His innocence, yes, " pursued Mrs. Adding, "and his ideals. " She began tolaugh again. "He may have gone off for a season of meditation and prayerover the misbehavior of these bicyclers. His mind is turning that way agood deal lately. It's only fair to tell you, Mr. March, that he seems tobe giving up his notion of being an editor. You mustn't be disappointed. "

"I shall be sorry, " said the editor. "But now that you mention it, Ithink I have noticed that Rose seems rather more indifferent toperiodical literature. I supposed he might simply have exhausted hisquestions--or my answers. "

"No; it goes deeper than that. I think it's Europe that's turned his mindin the direction of reform. At any rate he thinks now he will be areformer. "

"Really! What kind of one? Not religious, I hope?"

"No. His reform has a religious basis, but its objects are social. Idon't make it out, exactly; but I shall, as soon as Rose does. He tellsme everything, and sometimes I don't feel equal to it, spiritually oreven intellectually. "

"Don't laugh at him, Mrs. Adding!" Mrs. March entreated. 

"Oh, he doesn't mind my laughing, " said the mother, gayly. Rose cameshyly back into the room, and she said, "Well, did you rebuke those badbicyclers?" and she laughed again. 

"They're only a custom, too, Rose, ", said March, tenderly. "Like the manresting while the women worked, and the Emperor, and all the rest of it. "

"Oh, yes, I know, " the boy returned. 

"They ride modern machines, but they live in the tenth century. That'swhat we're always forgetting when we come to Europe and see thesebarbarians enjoying all our up-to-date improvements. "

"There, doesn't that console you?" asked his mother, and she took him awaywith her, laughing back from the door. "I don't believe it does, a bit!"

"I don't believe she understands the child, " said Mrs. March. "She isvery light, don't you think? I don't know, after all, whether it wouldn'tbe a good thing for her to marry Kenby. She is very easygoing, and shewill be sure to marry somebody. "

She had fallen into a tone of musing censure, and he said, "You might putthese ideas to her. "

XL. 

With the passage of the days and weeks, the strange faces which hadfamiliarized themselves at the springs disappeared; even some of thosewhich had become the faces of acquaintance began to go. In thediminishing crowd the smile of Otterson was no longer to be seen; thesad, severe visage of Major Eltwin, who seemed never to have quite gothis bearings after his error with General Triscoe, seldom showed itself. The Triscoes themselves kept out of the Marches' way, or they fancied so;Mrs. Adding and Rose alone remained of their daily encounter. 

It was full summer, as it is everywhere in mid-August, but at Carlsbadthe sun was so late getting up over the hills that as people went totheir breakfasts at the cafes up the valley of the Tepl they found himlooking very obliquely into it at eight o'clock in the morning. Theyellow leaves were thicker about the feet of the trees, and the grass wassilvery gray with the belated dews. The breakfasters were fewer than theyhad been, and there were more little barefooted boys and girls with cupsof red raspberries which they offered to the passers with cries of"Himbeeren! Himbeeren!" plaintive as the notes of birds left songless bythe receding summer. 

March was forbidden the fruit, but his wife and Mrs. Adding boughtrecklessly of it, and ate it under his eyes with their coffee and bread, pouring over it pots of clotted cream that the 'schone' Lili broughtthem. Rose pretended an indifference to it, which his mother betrayed wasa sacrifice in behalf of March's inability. 

Lili's delays in coming to be paid had been such that the Marches nowtried to pay her when she brought their breakfast, but they sometimesforgot, and then they caught her whenever she came near them. In thisevent she liked to coquet with their impatience; she would lean againsttheir table, and say: "Oh, no. You stay a little. It is so nice. " One dayafter such an entreaty, she said, "The queen is here, this morning. "

Mrs. March started, in the hope of highhotes. "The queen!"

"Yes; the young lady. Mr. Burnamy was saying she was a queen. She isthere with her father. " She nodded in the direction of a distant corner, and the Marches knew that she meant Miss Triscoe and the general. "She isnot seeming so gayly as she was being. "

March smiled. "We are none of us so gayly as we were being, Lili. Thesummer is going. "

"But Mr. Burnamy will be returning, not true?" the girl asked, restingher tray on the corner of the table. 

"No, I'm afraid he won't, " March returned sadly. 

"He was very good. He was paying the proprietor for the dishes thatAugusta did break when she was falling down. He was paying before he wentaway, when he was knowing that the proprietor would make Augusta to pay. "

"Ah!" said March, and his wife said, "That was like him!" and she eagerlyexplained to Mrs. Adding how good and great Burnamy had been in thischaracteristic instance, while Lili waited with the tray to add somepathetic facts about Augusta's poverty and gratitude. "I think MissTriscoe ought to know it. There goes the wretch, now!" she broke off. "Don't look at him!" She set her husband the example of averting his facefrom the sight of Stoller sullenly pacing up the middle aisle of thegrove, and looking to the right and left for a vacant table. "Ugh! I hopehe won't be able to find a single place. "

Mrs. Adding gave one of her pealing laughs, while Rose watched March'sface with grave sympathy. "He certainly doesn't deserve one. Don't let uskeep you from offering Miss Triscoe any consolation you can. " They gotup, and the boy gathered up the gloves, umbrella, and handkerchief whichthe ladies let drop from their laps. 

"Have you been telling?" March asked his wife. 

"Have I told you anything?" she demanded of Mrs. Adding in turn. "Anything that you didn't as good as know, already?"

"Not a syllable!" Mrs. Adding replied in high delight. "Come, Rose!"

"Well, I suppose there's no use saying anything, " said March, after sheleft them. 

"She had guessed everything, without my telling her, " said his wife. 

"About Stoller?"

"Well-no. I did tell her that part, but that was nothing. It was aboutBurnamy and Agatha that she knew. She saw it from the first. "

"I should have thought she would have enough to do to look after poor oldKenby. "

"I'm not sure, after all, that she cares for him. If she doesn't, sheoughtn't to let him write to her. Aren't you going over to speak to theTriscoes?"

"No, certainly not. I'm going back to the hotel. There ought to be somesteamer letters this morning. Here we are, worrying about these strangersall the time, and we never give a thought to our own children on theother side of the ocean. "

"I worry about them, too, " said the mother, fondly. "Though there isnothing to worry about, " she added. 

"It's our duty to worry, " he insisted. 

At the hotel the portier gave them four letters. There was one from eachof their children: one very buoyant, not to say boisterous, from thedaughter, celebrating her happiness in her husband, and the loveliness ofChicago as a summer city ("You would think she was born out there!"sighed her mother); and one from the son, boasting his well-being inspite of the heat they were having ("And just think how cool it is here!"his mother upbraided herself), and the prosperity of 'Every Other Week'. There was a line from Fulkerson, praising the boy's editorial instinct, and ironically proposing March's resignation in his favor. 

"I do believe we could stay all winter, just as well as not, " said Mrs. March, proudly. "What does 'Burnamy say?"

"How do you know it's from him?"

"Because you've been keeping your hand on it! Give it here. "

"When I've read it. "

The letter was dated at Ansbach, in Germany, and dealt, except for somemessages of affection to Mrs. March, with a scheme for a paper whichBurnamy wished to write on Kaspar Hauser, if March thought he could useit in 'Every Other Week'. He had come upon a book about that haplessfoundling in Nuremberg, and after looking up all his traces there he hadgone on to Ansbach, where Kaspar Hauser met his death so pathetically. Burnamy said he could not give any notion of the enchantment ofNuremberg; but he besought March, if he was going to the Tyrol for hisafter-cure, not to fail staying a day or so in the wonderful place. Hethought March would enjoy Ansbach too, in its way. 

"And, not a word--not a syllable--about Miss Triscoe!" cried Mrs. March. "Shall you take his paper?"

"It would be serving him right, if I refused it, wouldn't it?"

They never knew what it cost Burnamy to keep her name out of his letter, or by what an effort of the will he forbade himself even to tell of hisparting interview with Stoller. He had recovered from his remorse forletting Stoller give himself away; he was still sorry for that, but he nolonger suffered; yet he had not reached the psychological moment when hecould celebrate his final virtue in the matter. He was glad he had beenable to hold out against the temptation to retrieve himself by anotherwrong; but he was humbly glad, and he felt that until happier chancebrought him and his friends together he must leave them to their mercifulconjectures. He was young, and he took the chance, with an aching heart. If he had been older, he might not have taken it. 

XLI. 

The birthday of the Emperor comes conveniently, in late August, in thegood weather which is pretty sure to fall then, if ever in the Austriansummer. For a week past, at Carlsbad, the workmen had been building ascaffolding for the illumination in the woods on a height overlooking thetown, and making unobtrusive preparations at points within it. 

The day was important as the last of March's cure, and its pleasuresbegan for him by a renewal of his acquaintance in its first kindlinesswith the Eltwins. He had met them so seldom that at one time he thoughtthey must have gone away, but now after his first cup he saw the quiet, sad old pair, sitting together on a bench in the Stadt Park, and he askedleave to sit down with them till it was time for the next. Eltwin saidthat this was their last day, too; and explained that his wife alwayscame with him to the springs, while he took the waters. 

"Well, " he apologized, "we're all that's left, and I suppose we like tokeep together. " He paused, and at the look in March's face he suddenlywent on. "I haven't been well for three or four years; but I alwaysfought against coming out here, when the doctors wanted me to. I said Icouldn't leave home; and, I don't suppose I ever should. But my home leftme. "

As he spoke his wife shrank tenderly near him, and March saw her stealher withered hand into his. 

"We'd had a large family, but they'd all died off, with one thing oranother, and here in the spring we lost our last daughter. Seemedperfectly well, and all at once she died; heart-failure, they called it. It broke me up, and mother, here, got at me to go. And so we're here. "His voice trembled; and his eyes softened; then they flashed up, andMarch heard him add, in a tone that astonished him less when he lookedround and saw General Triscoe advancing toward them, "I don't know whatit is always makes me want to kick that man. "

The general lifted his hat to their group, and hoped that Mrs. Eltwin waswell, and Major Eltwin better. He did not notice their replies, but saidto March, "The ladies are waiting for you in Pupp's readingroom, to gowith them to the Posthof for breakfast. "

"Aren't you going, too?" asked March. 

"No, thank you, " said the general, as if it were much finer not; "I shallbreakfast at our pension. " He strolled off with the air of a man who hasdone more than his duty. 

"I don't suppose I ought to feel that way, " said Eltwin, with a remorsewhich March suspected a reproachful pressure of his wife's hand hadprompted in him. "I reckon he means well. "

"Well, I don't know, " March said, with a candor he could not whollyexcuse. 

On his way to the hotel he fancied mocking his wife for her interest inthe romantic woes of her lovers, in a world where there was such realpathos as these poor old people's; but in the company of Miss Triscoe hecould not give himself this pleasure. He tried to amuse her on the wayfrom Pupp's, with the doubt he always felt in passing the CafeSans-Souci, whether he should live to reach the Posthof where he meant tobreakfast. She said, "Poor Mr. March!" and laughed inattentively; when hewent on to philosophize the commonness of the sparse company alwaysobservable at the Sans-Souci as a just effect of its Laodicean situationbetween Pupp's and the Posthof, the girl sighed absently, and his wifefrowned at him. 

The flower-woman at the gate of her garden had now only autumnal bloomsfor sale in the vases which flanked the entrance; the windrows of therowen, left steeping in the dews overnight, exhaled a faint fragrance; apoor remnant of the midsummer multitudes trailed itself along to thevarious cafes of the valley, its pink paper bags of bread rustling likesere foliage as it moved. 

At the Posthof the 'schone' Lili alone was as gay, as in the prime ofJuly. She played archly about the guests she welcomed to a table in asunny spot in the gallery. "You are tired of Carlsbad?" she saidcaressingly to Miss Triscoe, as she put her breakfast before her. 

"Not of the Posthof, " said the girl, listlessly. 

"Posthof, and very little Lili?" She showed, with one forefinger onanother, how very little she was. 

Miss Triscoe laughed, not cheerily, and Lili said to Mrs. March, withabrupt seriousness, "Augusta was finding a handkerchief under the table, and she was washing it and ironing it before she did bring it. I havescolded her, and I have made her give it to me. "

She took from under her apron a man's handkerchief, which she offered toMrs. March. It bore, as she saw Miss Triscoe saw, the initials L. J. B. But, "Whose can it be?" they asked each other. 

"Why, Burnamy's, " said March; and Lili's eyes danced. "Give it here!"

His wife caught it farther away. "No, I'm going to see whose it is, first; if it's his, I'll send it to him myself. "

She tried to put it into the pocket which was not in her dress by slidingit down her lap; then she handed it to the girl, who took it with acareless air, but kept it after a like failure to pocket it. 

Mrs. March had come out in her India-rubber sandals, but for once inCarlsbad the weather was too dry for them, and she had taken them off andwas holding them in her lap. They fell to the ground when she now rosefrom breakfast, and she stooped to pick them up. Miss Triscoe was tooquick for her. 

"Oh, let me carry them for you!" she entreated, and after a tenderstruggle she succeed in enslaving herself to them, and went away wearingthem through the heel-bands like manacles on her wrist. She was not thekind of girl to offer such pretty devotions, and Mrs. March was not thekind of woman to suffer them; but they played the comedy through, and letMarch go off for his last hill-climb with the promise to meet him in theStadt Park when he came to the Kurhaus for his last mineral bath. 

Mrs. March in the mean time went about some final shopping, and invitedthe girl's advice with a fondness which did not prevent her rejecting itin every case, with Miss Triscoe's eager approval. In the Stadt Park theysat down and talked; from time to time Mrs. March made polite feints ofrecovering her sandals, but the girl kept them with increased effusion. 

When they rose, and strolled away from the bench where they had beensitting, they seemed to be followed. They looked round and saw no onemore alarming than a very severe-looking old gentleman, whose hat brim inspite of his severity was limp with much lifting, as all Austrian hatbrims are. He touched it, and saying haughtily in German, "Something leftlying, " passed on. 

They stared at each other; then, as women do, they glanced down at theirskirts to see if there was anything amiss with them, and Miss Triscoeperceived her hands empty of Mrs. March's sandals and of Burnamy'shandkerchief. 

"Oh, I put it in one of the toes!" she lamented, and she fled back totheir bench, alarming in her course the fears of a gendarme for thepublic security, and putting a baby in its nurse's arms into such doubtsof its personal safety that it burst into a desolate cry. She laughedbreathlessly as she rejoined Mrs. March. "That comes of having no pocket;I didn't suppose I could forget your sandals, Mrs. March! Wasn't itabsurd?"

"It's one of those things, " Mrs. March said to her husband afterwards, "that they can always laugh over together. "

"They? And what about Burnamy's behavior to Stoller?"

"Oh, I don't call that anything but what will come right. Of course hecan make it up to him somehow. And I regard his refusal to do wrong whenStoller wanted him to as quite wiping out the first offence. "

"Well, my dear, you have burnt your ships behind you. My only hope isthat when we leave here tomorrow, her pessimistic papa's poison willneutralize yours somehow. "

XLII. 

One of the pleasantest incidents of March's sojourn in Carlsbad was hisintroduction to the manager of the municipal theatre by a common friendwho explained the editor in such terms to the manager that he conceivedof him as a brother artist. This led to much bowing and smiling from themanager when the Marches met him in the street, or in their frequentvisits to the theatre, with which March felt that it might well haveended, and still been far beyond his desert. He had not thought of goingto the opera on the Emperor's birthnight, but after dinner a box camefrom the manager, and Mrs. March agreed with him that they could not indecency accept so great a favor. At the same time she argued that theycould not in decency refuse it, and that to show their sense of thepleasure done them, they must adorn their box with all the beauty anddistinction possible; in other words, she said they must ask Miss Triscoeand her father. 

"And why not Major Eltwin and his wife? Or Mrs. Adding and Rose?"

She begged him, simply in his own interest, not to be foolish; and theywent early, so as to be in their box when their guests came. The foyer ofthe theatre was banked with flowers, and against a curtain of evergreensstood a high-pedestalled bust of the paternal Caesar, with whoseside-whiskers a laurel crown comported itself as well as it could. At thefoot of the grand staircase leading to the boxes the manager stood inevening dress, receiving his friends and their felicitations upon thehonor which the theatre was sure to do itself on an occasion so august. The Marches were so cordial in their prophecies that the manager yieldedto an artist's impulse and begged his fellow-artist to do him thepleasure of coming behind the scenes between the acts of the opera; hebowed a heart-felt regret to Mrs. March that he could not make theinvitation include her, and hoped that she would not be too lonely whileher husband was gone. 

She explained that they had asked friends, and she should not be alone, and then he entreated March to bring any gentleman who was his guest withhim. On the way up to their box, she pressed his arm as she used in theiryoung married days, and asked him if it was not perfect. "I wish we weregoing to have it all to ourselves; no one else can appreciate the wholesituation. Do you think we have made a mistake in having the Triscoes?"

"We!" he retorted. "Oh, that's good! I'm going to shirk him, when itcomes to going behind the scenes. "

"No, no, dearest, " she entreated. "Snubbing will only make it worse. Wemust stand it to the bitter end, now. "

The curtain rose upon another laurelled bust of the Emperor, with achorus of men formed on either side, who broke into the grave and noblestrains of the Austrian Hymn, while every one stood. Then the curtainfell again, and in the interval before the opera could begin, GeneralTriscoe and his daughter came in. 

Mrs. March took the splendor in which the girl appeared as a tribute toher hospitality. She had hitherto been a little disappointed of the openhomage to American girlhood which her readings of international romancehad taught her to expect in Europe, but now her patriotic vanity feastedfull. Fat highhotes of her own sex levelled their lorgnettes at MissTriscoe all around the horseshoe, with critical glances which fellblunted from her complexion and costume; the house was brilliant with themilitary uniforms, which we have not yet to mingle with our unrivalledmillinery, and the ardent gaze of the young officers dwelt on the perfectmould of her girlish arms and neck, and the winning lines of her face. The girl's eyes shone with a joyful excitement, and her little head, defined by its dark hair, trembled as she slowly turned it from side toside, after she removed the airy scarf which had covered it. Her father, in evening dress, looked the Third Emperor complaisant to a civiloccasion, and took a chair in the front of the box without resistance;and the ladies disputed which should yield the best place to the other, till Miss Triscoe forced Mrs. March fondly into it for the first act atleast. 

The piece had to be cut a good deal to give people time for theilluminations afterwards; but as it was it gave scope to the actress who, 'als Gast' from a Viennese theatre, was the chief figure in it. Shemerited the distinction by the art which still lingered, deeply embeddedin her massive balk, but never wholly obscured. 

"That is grand, isn't it?" said March, following one of the tremendousstrokes by which she overcame her physical disadvantages. "It's fine tosee how her art can undo, for one splendid instant, the work of all thosesteins of beer, those illimitable licks of sausage, those boundlessfields of cabbage. But it's rather pathetic. "

"It's disgusting, " said his wife; and at this General Triscoe, who hadbeen watching the actress through his lorgnette, said, as if hiscontrary-mindedness were irresistibly invoked:

"Well, I don't know. It's amusing. Do you suppose we shall see her whenwe go behind, March?"

He still professed a desire to do so when the curtain fell, and theyhurried to the rear door of the theatre. It was slightly ajar, and theypulled it wide open, with the eagerness of their age and nation, andbegan to mount the stairs leading up from it between rows of painteddancing-girls, who had come out for a breath of air, and who pressedthemselves against the walls to make room for the intruders. With theirrouged faces, and the stare of their glassy eyes intensified by thecoloring of their brows and lashes, they were like painted statues, asthey stood there with their crimsoned lips parted in astonished smiles. 

"This is rather weird, " said March, faltering at the sight. "I wonder ifwe might ask these young ladies where to go?" General Triscoe made noanswer, and was apparently no more prepared than himself to accost thefiles of danseuses, when they were themselves accosted by an angry voicefrom the head of the stairs with a demand for their business. The voicebelonged to a gendarme, who descended toward them and seemed as deeplyscandalized at their appearance as they could have been at that of theyoung ladies. 

March explained, in his ineffective German, with every effect ofimprobability, that they were there by appointment of the manager, andwished to find his room. 

The gendarme would not or could not make anything out of it. He presseddown upon them, and laying a rude hand on a shoulder of either, began toforce them back to the door. The mild nature of the editor might haveyielded to his violence, but the martial spirit of General Triscoe wasroused. He shrugged the gendarme's hand from his shoulder, and with avoice as furious as his own required him, in English, to say what thedevil he meant. The gendarme rejoined with equal heat in German; thegeneral's tone rose in anger; the dancing-girls emitted some littleshrieks of alarm, and fled noisily up the stairs. From time to time Marchinterposed with a word of the German which had mostly deserted him in hishour of need; but if it had been a flow of intelligible expostulation, itwould have had no effect upon the disputants. They grew more outrageous, till the manager himself, appeared at the head of the stairs, andextended an arresting hand over the hubbub. As soon as the situationclarified itself he hurried down to his visitors with a polite roar ofapology and rescued them from the gendarme, and led them up to his roomand forced them into arm-chairs with a rapidity of reparation which didnot exhaust itself till he had entreated them with every circumstance ofcivility to excuse an incident so mortifying to him. But with all hishaste he lost so much time in this that he had little left to show themthrough the theatre, and their presentation to the prima donna wasreduced to the obeisances with which they met and parted as she went uponthe stage at the lifting of the curtain. In the lack of a common languagethis was perhaps as well as a longer interview; and nothing could havebeen more honorable than their dismissal at the hands of the gendarme whohad received them so stormily. He opened the door for them, and stoodwith his fingers to his cap saluting, in the effect of being a whole fileof grenadiers. 

XLIII. 

At the same moment Burnamy bowed himself out of the box where he had beensitting with the ladies during the absence of the gentlemen. He hadknocked at the door almost as soon as they disappeared, and if he did notfully share the consternation which his presence caused, he looked sofrightened that Mrs. March reserved the censure which the sight of himinspired, and in default of other inspiration treated his coming simplyas a surprise. She shook hands with him, and then she asked him to sitdown, and listened to his explanation that he had come back to Carlsbadto write up the birthnight festivities, on an order from the Paris-NewYork Chronicle; that he had seen them in the box and had ventured to tookin. He was pale, and so discomposed that the heart of justice wassoftened more and more in Mrs. March's breast, and she left him to thetalk that sprang up, by an admirable effect of tact in the young lady, between him and Miss Triscoe. 

After all, she decided, there was nothing criminal in his being inCarlsbad, and possibly in the last analysis there was nothing so verywicked in his being in her box. One might say that it was not very niceof him after he had gone away under such a cloud; but on the other handit was nice, though in a different way, if he longed so much to see MissTriscoe that he could not help coming. It was altogether in his favorthat he was so agitated, though he was momently becoming less agitated;the young people were beginning to laugh at the notion of Mr. March andGeneral Triscoe going behind the scenes. Burnamy said he envied them thechance; and added, not very relevantly, that he had come from Baireuth, where he had seen the last of the Wagner performances. He said he wasgoing back to Baireuth, but not to Ansbach again, where he had finishedlooking up that Kaspar Hauser business. He seemed to think Mrs. Marchwould know about it, and she could not help saying; Oh, yes, Mr. Marchwas so much interested. She wondered if she ought to tell him about hishandkerchief; but she remembered in time that she had left it in MissTriscoe's keeping. She wondered if the girl realized how handsome he was. He was extremely handsome, in his black evening dress, with his Tuxedo, and the pallor of his face repeated in his expanse of shirt front. 

At the bell for the rising of the curtain he rose too, and took theiroffered hands. In offering hers Mrs. March asked if he would not stay andspeak with Mr. March and the general; and now for the first time herecognized anything clandestine in his visit. He laughed nervously, andsaid, "No, thank you!" and shut himself out. 

"We must tell them, " said Mrs. March, rather interrogatively, and she wasglad that the girl answered with a note of indignation. 

"Why, certainly, Mrs. March. "

They could not tell them at once, for the second act had begun when Marchand the general came back; and after the opera was over and they got outinto the crowded street there was no chance, for the general was obligedto offer his arm to Mrs. March, while her husband followed with hisdaughter. 

The facades of the theatre and of the hotels were outlined with thicklyset little lamps, which beaded the arches of the bridges spanning theTepl, and lighted the casements and portals of the shops. High above all, against the curtain of black woodland on the mountain where its skeletonhad been growing for days, glittered the colossal effigy of thedoubleheaded eagle of Austria, crowned with the tiara of the Holy RomanEmpire; in the reflected splendor of its myriad lamps the pale Christlooked down from the mountain opposite upon the surging multitudes in thestreets and on the bridges. 

They were most amiable multitudes, March thought, and they respondeddocilely to the entreaties of the policemen who stood on the steps of thebridges, and divided their encountering currents with patient appeals of"Bitte schon! Bitte schon!" He laughed to think of a New York cop saying"Please prettily! Please prettily!" to a New York crowd which he wishedto have go this way or that, and then he burned with shame to think howfar our manners were from civilization, wherever our heads and heartsmight be, when he heard a voice at his elbow:

"A punch with a club would start some of these fellows along quicker. "

It was Stoller, and March turned from him to lose his disgust in thesudden terror of perceiving that Miss Triscoe was no longer at his side. Neither could he see his wife and General Triscoe, and he began to pushfrantically about in the crowd looking for the girl. He had aninterminable five or ten minutes in his vain search, and he was going tocall out to her by name, when Burnamy saved him from the hopelessabsurdity by elbowing his way to him with Miss. Triscoe on his arm. 

"Here she is, Mr. March, " he said, as if there were nothing strange inhis having been there to find her; in fact he had followed them all fromthe theatre, and at the moment he saw the party separated, and MissTriscoe carried off helpless in the human stream, had plunged in andrescued her. Before March could formulate any question in hisbewilderment, Burnamy was gone again; the girl offered no explanation forhim, and March had not yet decided to ask any when he caught sight of hiswife and General Triscoe standing tiptoe in a doorway and craning theirnecks upward and forward to scan the crowd in search of him and hischarge. Then he looked round at her and opened his lips to express theastonishment that filled him, when he was aware of an ominous shining ofher eyes and trembling of her hand on his arm. 

She pressed his arm nervously, and he understood her to beg him toforbear at once all question of her and all comment on Burnamy's presenceto her father. 

It would not have been just the time for either. Not only Mrs. March waswith the general, but Mrs. Adding also; she had called to them from thatplace, where she was safe with Rose when she saw them eddying about inthe crowd. The general was still, expressing a gratitude which becamemore pressing the more it was disclaimed; he said casually at sight ofhis daughter, "Ah; you've found us, have you?" and went on talking toMrs. Adding, who nodded to them laughingly, and asked, "Did you see mebeckoning?"

"Look here, my dear!" March said to his wife as soon as they parted fromthe rest, the general gallantly promising that his daughter and he wouldsee Mrs. Adding safe to her hotel, and were making their way slowly homealone. "Did you know that Burnamy was in Carlsbad?"

"He's going away on the twelve-o'clock train tonight, " she answered, firmly. 

"What has that got to do with it? Where did you see him?"

"In the box, while you were behind the scenes. "

She told him all about it, and he listened in silent endeavor for theground of censure from which a sense of his own guilt forced him. Sheasked suddenly, "Where did you see him?" and he told her in turn. 

He added severely, "Her father ought to know. Why didn't you tell him?"

"Why didn't you?" she retorted with great reason. 

"Because I didn't think he was just in the humor for it. " He began tolaugh as he sketched their encounter with the gendarme, but she did notseem to think it amusing; and he became serious again. "Besides, I wasafraid she was going to blubber, any way. "

"She wouldn't have blubbered, as you call it. I don't know why you needbe so disgusting! It would have given her just the moral support sheneeded. Now she will have to tell him herself, and he will blame us. Youought to have spoken; you could have done it easily and naturally whenyou came up with her. You will have yourself to thank for all the troublethat comes of it, now, my dear. "

He shouted in admiration of her skill in shifting the blame on him. "Allright! I should have had to stand it, even if you hadn't behaved withangelic wisdom. "

"Why, " she said, after reflection, "I don't see what either of us hasdone. We didn't get Burnamy to come here, or connive at his presence inany way. "

"Oh! Make Triscoe believe that! He knows you've done all you could tohelp the affair on. "

"Well, what if I have? He began making up to Mrs. Adding himself as soonas he saw her, to-night. She looked very pretty. "

"Well, thank Heaven! we're off to-morrow morning, and I hope we've seenthe last of them. They've done what they could to spoil my cure, but I'mnot going to have them spoil my aftercure. "

XLIV. 

Mrs. March had decided not to go to the Posthof for breakfast, where theyhad already taken a lavish leave of the 'schone' Lili, with a sense ofbeing promptly superseded in her affections. They found a place in thered-table-cloth end of the pavilion at Pupp's, and were served by thepretty girl with the rose-bud mouth whom they had known only asEin-und-Zwanzig, and whose promise of "Komm' gleich, bitte schon!" waslike a bird's note. Never had the coffee been so good, the bread soaerially light, the Westphalian ham so tenderly pink. A young marriedcouple whom they knew came by, arm in arm, in their morning walk, and satdown with them, like their own youth, for a moment. 

"If you had told them we were going, dear, " said Mrs. March, when thecouple were themselves gone, "we should have been as old as ever. Don'tlet us tell anybody, this morning, that we're going. I couldn't bear it. "

They had been obliged to take the secretary of the hotel into theirconfidence, in the process of paying their bill. He put on his high hatand came out to see them off. The portier was already there, standing atthe step of the lordly two-spanner which they had ordered for the longdrive to the station. The Swiss elevator-man came to the door to offerthem a fellow-republican's good wishes for their journey; Herr Pupphimself appeared at the last moment to hope for their return anothersummer. Mrs. March bent a last look of interest upon the proprietor astheir two-spanner whirled away. 

"They say that he is going to be made a count. "

"Well, I don't object, " said March. "A man who can feed fourteen thousandpeople, mostly Germans, in a day, ought to be made an archduke. "

At the station something happened which touched them even more than theselast attentions of the hotel. They were in their compartment, and were inthe act of possessing themselves of the best places by putting theirbundles and bags on them, when they heard Mrs. March's name called. 

They turned and saw Rose Adding at the door, his thin face flushed withexcitement and his eyes glowing. "I was afraid I shouldn't get here intime, " he panted, and he held up to her a huge bunch of flowers. 

"Why Rose! From your mother?"

"From me, " he said, timidly, and he was slipping out into the corridor, when she caught him and his flowers to her in one embrace. "I want tokiss you, " she said; and presently, when he had waved his hand to themfrom the platform outside, and the train had started, she fumbled for herhandkerchief. "I suppose you call it blubbering; but he is the sweetestchild!"

"He's about the only one of our Carlsbad compatriots that I'm sorry toleave behind, " March assented. "He's the only unmarried one that wasn'tin danger of turning up a lover on my hands; if there had been somerather old girl, or some rather light matron in our acquaintance, I'm notsure that I should have been safe even from Rose. Carlsbad has been aninterruption to our silver wedding journey, my dear; but I hope now thatit will begin again. "

"Yes, " said his wife, "now we can have each other all to ourselves. "

"Yes. It's been very different from our first wedding journey in that. Itisn't that we're not so young now as we were, but that we don't seem somuch our own property. We used to be the sole proprietors, and now weseem to be mere tenants at will, and any interloping lover may come inand set our dearest interests on the sidewalk. The disadvantage of livingalong is that we get too much into the hands of other people. "

"Yes, it is. I shall be glad to be rid of them all, too. "

"I don't know that the drawback is serious enough to make us wish we haddied young--or younger, " he suggested. 

"No, I don't know that it is, " she assented. She added, from an absencewhere he was sufficiently able to locate her meaning, "I hope she'llwrite and tell me what her father says and does when she tells him thathe was there. "

There were many things, in the weather, the landscape, their soleoccupancy of an unsmoking compartment, while all the smoking compartmentsround overflowed with smokers, which conspired to offer them a pleasingillusion of the past; it was sometimes so perfect that they almost heldeach other's hands. In later life there are such moments when theyouthful emotions come back, as certain birds do in winter, and theelderly heart chirps and twitters to itself as if it were young. But itis best to discourage this fondness; and Mrs. March joined her husband inmocking it, when he made her observe how fit it was that their silverwedding journey should be resumed as part of his after-cure. If he hadfound the fountain of youth in the warm, flat, faintly nauseous water ofthe Felsenquelle, he was not going to call himself twenty-eight againtill his second month of the Carlsbad regimen was out, and he had gotback to salad and fruit. 

At Eger they had a memorable dinner, with so much leisure for it thatthey could form a life-long friendship for the old English-speakingwaiter who served them, and would not suffer them to hurry themselves. The hills had already fallen away, and they ran along through a cheerfulcountry, with tracts of forest under white clouds blowing about in a bluesky, and gayly flinging their shadows down upon the brown ploughed land, and upon the yellow oat-fields, where women were cutting the leisurelyharvest with sickles, and where once a great girl with swarthy bare armsunbent herself from her toil, and rose, a statue of rude vigor andbeauty, to watch them go by. Hedges of evergreen enclosed the yellowoat-fields, where slow wagons paused to gather the sheaves of the weekbefore, and then loitered away with them. Flocks of geese waddled insculpturesque relief against the close-cropt pastures, herded by littlegirls with flaxen pigtails, whose eyes, blue as corn-flowers, followedthe flying train. There were stretches of wild thyme purpling long barrenacreages, and growing up the railroad banks almost to the railsthemselves. From the meadows the rowen, tossed in long loose windrows, sent into their car a sad autumnal fragrance which mingled with thetobacco smoke, when two fat smokers emerged into the narrow corridoroutside their compartments and tried to pass each other. Their vaststomachs beat together in a vain encounter. 

"Zu enge!" said one, and "Ja, zu enge!" said the other, and they laughedinnocently in each other's' faces, with a joy in their recognition of thecorridor's narrowness as great as if it had been a stroke of the finestwit. 

All the way the land was lovely, and as they drew near Nuremberg it grewenchanting, with a fairy quaintness. The scenery was Alpine, but thescale was toy-like, as befitted the region, and the mimic peaks andvalleys with green brooks gushing between them, and strange rock formsrecurring in endless caprice, seemed the home of children's story. Allthe gnomes and elves might have dwelt there in peaceful fellowship withthe peasants who ploughed the little fields, and gathered the garlandedhops, and lived in the farmsteads and village houses with those hightimber-laced gables. 

"We ought to have come here long ago with the children, when they werechildren, " said March. 

"No, " his wife returned; "it would have been too much for them. Nobodybut grown people could bear it. "

The spell which began here was not really broken by anything thatafterwards happened in Nuremberg, though the old toy-capital wastrolley-wired through all its quaintness, and they were lodged in a hotellighted by electricity and heated by steam, and equipped with an elevatorwhich was so modern that it came down with them as well as went up. Allthe things that assumed to be of recent structure or invention were asnothing against the dense past, which overwhelmed them with the sense ofa world elsewhere outlived. In Nuremberg it is not the quaint or thepicturesque that is exceptional; it is the matter-of-fact and thecommonplace. Here, more than anywhere else, you are steeped in the gothicspirit which expresses itself in a Teutonic dialect of homely sweetness, of endearing caprice, of rude grotesqueness, but of positive grace andbeauty almost never. It is the architectural speech of a strenuous, gross, kindly, honest people's fancy; such as it is it was inexhaustible, and such as it is it was bewitching for the travellers. 

They could hardly wait till they had supper before plunging into theancient town, and they took the first tram-car at a venture. It was asort of transfer, drawn by horses, which delivered them a little inside. Of the city gate to a trolley-car. The conductor with their fare demandedtheir destination; March frankly owned that they did not know where theywanted to go; they wanted to go anywhere the conductor chose; and theconductor, after reflection, decided to put them down at the publicgarden, which, as one of the newest things in the city, would make themost favorable impression upon strangers. It was in fact so like allother city gardens, with the foliage of its trimly planted alleys, thatit sheltered them effectually from the picturesqueness of Nuremberg, andthey had a long, peaceful hour on one of its benches, where they restedfrom their journey, and repented their hasty attempt to appropriate thecharm of the city. 

The next morning it rained, according to a custom which the elevator-boy(flown with the insolent recollection of a sunny summer in Milan) saidwas invariable in Nuremberg; but after the one-o'clock table d'hote theytook a noble two-spanner carriage, and drove all round the city. Everywhere the ancient moat, thickly turfed and planted with trees andshrubs, stretched a girdle of garden between their course and the wallbeautifully old, with knots of dead ivy clinging to its crevices, orbroad meshes of the shining foliage mantling its blackened masonry. Atile-roofed open gallery ran along the top, where so many centuries ofsentries had paced, and arched the massive gates with heavily mouldedpiers, where so countlessly the fierce burgher troops had sallied forthagainst their besiegers, and so often the leaguer hosts had dashedthemselves in assault. The blood shed in forgotten battles would haveflooded the moat where now the grass and flowers grew, or here and therea peaceful stretch of water stagnated. 

The drive ended in a visit to the old Burg, where the Hapsburg Kaisersdwelt when they visited their faithful imperial city. From its rampartsthe incredible picturesqueness of Nuremberg best shows itself, and if onehas any love for the distinctive quality of Teutonic architecture it ishere that more than anywhere else one may feast it. The prospect of towerand spire and gable is of such a mediaeval richness, of such an aboundingfulness, that all incidents are lost in it. The multitudinous roofs ofred-brown tiles, blinking browsily from their low dormers, press upon oneanother in endless succession; they cluster together on a rise of groundand sink away where the street falls, but they nowhere disperse orscatter, and they end abruptly at the other rim of the city, beyond whichlooms the green country, merging in the remoter blue of misty uplands. 

A pretty young girl waited at the door of the tower for the visitors togather in sufficient number, and then led them through the terriblemuseum, discanting in the same gay voice and with the same smiling air onall the murderous engines and implements of torture. First in German andthen in English she explained the fearful uses of the Iron Maiden, shewinningly illustrated the action of the racks and wheels on which men hadbeen stretched and broken, and she sweetly vaunted a sword which hadbeheaded eight hundred persons. When she took the established fee fromMarch she suggested, with a demure glance, "And what more you please forsaying it in English. "

"Can you say it in Russian?" demanded a young man, whose eyes he had seendwelling on her from the beginning. She laughed archly, and respondedwith some Slavic words, and then delivered her train of sight-seers overto the custodian who was to show them through the halls and chambers ofthe Burg. These were undergoing the repairs which the monuments of thepast are perpetually suffering in the present, and there was some specialpainting and varnishing for the reception of the Kaiser, who was comingto Nuremberg for the military manoeuvres then at hand. But if they hadbeen in the unmolested discomfort of their unlivable magnificence, theirsplendor was such as might well reconcile the witness to the superiorcomfort of a private station in our snugger day. The Marches came outowning that the youth which might once have found the romantic glories ofthe place enough was gone from them. But so much of it was left to herthat she wished to make him stop and look at the flirtation which hadblossomed out between that pretty young girl and the Russian, whom theyhad scarcely missed from their party in the Burg. He had apparently neverparted from the girl, and now as they sat together on the threshold ofthe gloomy tower, he most have been teaching her more Slavic words, forthey were both laughing as if they understood each other perfectly. 

In his security from having the affair in any wise on his hands, Marchwould have willingly lingered, to see how her education got on; but itbegan to rain, The rain did not disturb the lovers, but it obliged theelderly spectators to take refuge in their carriage; and they drove offto find the famous Little Goose Man. This is what every one does atNuremberg; it would be difficult to say why. When they found the LittleGoose Man, he was only a mediaeval fancy in bronze, who stood on hispedestal in the market-place and contributed from the bill of the gooseunder his arm a small stream to the rainfall drenching the wet wares ofthe wet market-women round the fountain, and soaking their cauliflowersand lettuce, their grapes and pears, their carrots and turnips, to thewatery flavor of all fruits and vegetables in Germany. 

The air was very raw and chill; but after supper the clouds cleared away, and a pleasant evening tempted the travellers out. The portier dissembledany slight which their eagerness for the only amusement he could think ofinspired, and directed them to a popular theatre which was giving asummer season at low prices to the lower classes, and which theysurprised, after some search, trying to hide itself in a sort of backsquare. They got the best places at a price which ought to have beenmortifyingly cheap, and found themselves, with a thousand other harmlessbourgeois folk, in a sort of spacious, agreeable barn, of a decoration byno means ugly, and of a certain artless comfort. Each seat fronted ashelf at the back of the seat before it, where the spectator could puthis hat; there was a smaller shelf for his stein of the beer passedconstantly throughout the evening; and there was a buffet where he couldstay himself with cold ham and other robust German refreshments. 

It was "The Wedding Journey to Nuremberg" upon which they had oddlychanced, and they accepted as a national tribute the character of anAmerican girl in it. She was an American girl of the advanced pattern, and she came and went at a picnic on the arm of a head waiter. She seemedto have no office in the drama except to illustrate a German conceptionof American girlhood, but even in this simple function she seemed ratherto puzzle the German audience; perhaps because of the occasional Englishwords which she used. 

To the astonishment of her compatriots, when they came out of the theatreit was not raining; the night was as brilliantly starlit as a night couldbe in Germany, and they sauntered home richly content through the narrowstreets and through the beautiful old Damenthor, beyond which their hotellay. How pretty, they said, to call that charming port the Ladies' Gate!They promised each other to find out why, and they never did so, butsatisfied themselves by assigning it to the exclusive use of the slimmaidens and massive matrons of the old Nuremberg patriciate, whom theyimagined trailing their silken splendors under its arch in perpetualprocession. 

XLV. 

The life of the Nuremberg patriciate, now extinct in the control of thecity which it builded so strenuously and maintained so heroically, isstill insistent in all its art. This expresses their pride at once andtheir simplicity with a childish literality. At its best it is never sogood as the good Italian art, whose influence is always present in itsbest. The coloring of the great canvases is Venetian, but there is nosuch democracy of greatness as in the painting at Venice; in decorationthe art of Nuremberg is at best quaint, and at the worst puerile. Wherever it had obeyed an academic intention it seemed to March poor andcoarse, as in the bronze fountain beside the Church of St. Lawrence. Thewater spins from the pouted breasts of the beautiful figures in streamsthat cross and interlace after a fancy trivial and gross; but in the baseof the church there is a time-worn Gethsemane, exquisitely affecting inits simple-hearted truth. The long ages have made it even more affectingthan the sculptor imagined it; they have blurred the faces and figures inpassing till their features are scarcely distinguishable; and thesleeping apostles seem to have dreamed themselves back into themother-marble. It is of the same tradition and impulse with that supremeglory of the native sculpture, the ineffable tabernacle of Adam Krafft, which climbs a column of the church within, a miracle of richly carvenstory; and no doubt if there were a Nuremberg sculptor doing great thingstoday, his work would be of kindred inspiration. 

The descendants of the old patrician who ordered the tabernacle at rathera hard bargain from the artist still worship on the floor below, and thedescendants of his neighbor patricians have their seats in the pewsabout, and their names cut in the proprietary plates on the pew-tops. Thevergeress who showed the Marches through the church was devout in thepraise of these aristocratic fellow-citizens of hers. "So simple, and yetso noble!" she said. She was a very romantic vergeress, and she told themat unsparing length the legend of the tabernacle, how the artist fellasleep in despair of winning his patron's daughter, and saw in a visionthe master-work with the lily-like droop at top, which gained him herhand. They did not realize till too late that it was all out of a novelof Georg Ebers's, but added to the regular fee for the church a giftworthy of an inedited legend. 

Even then they had a pleasure in her enthusiasm rarely imparted by theNuremberg manner. They missed there the constant, sweet civility ofCarlsbad, and found themselves falling flat in their endeavors for alittle cordiality. They indeed inspired with some kindness the old womanwho showed them through that cemetery where Albert Durer and Hans Sachsand many other illustrious citizens lie buried under monumental brassesof such beauty:

 "That kings to have the like, might wish to die. "

But this must have been because they abandoned themselves so willingly tothe fascination of the bronze skull on the tomb of a fourteenth-centurypatrician, which had the uncommon advantage of a lower jaw hinged to theupper. She proudly clapped it up and down for their astonishment, andwaited, with a toothless smile, to let them discover the bead of a nailartfully figured in the skull; then she gave a shrill cackle of joy, andgleefully explained that the wife of this patrician had killed him bydriving a nail into his temple, and had been fitly beheaded for themurder. 

She cared so much for nothing else in the cemetery, but she consented tolet them wonder at the richness of the sculpture in the level tombs, withtheir escutcheons and memorial tablets, overrun by the long grass and thematted ivy; she even consented to share their indignation at thedestruction of some of the brasses and the theft of others. She sufferedmore reluctantly their tenderness for the old, old crucifixion figured insculpture at one corner of the cemetery, where the anguish of the Christhad long since faded into the stone from which it had been evoked, andthe thieves were no longer distinguishable in their penitence orimpenitence; but she parted friends with them when she saw how much theyseemed taken with the votive chapel of the noble Holzschuh family, wherea line of wooden shoes puns upon the name in the frieze, like the line ofdogs which chase one another, with bones in their mouths, around theCanossa palace at Verona. A sense of the beautiful house by the Adige waspart of the pleasing confusion which possessed them in Nuremberg wheneverthey came upon the expression of the gothic spirit common both to theGerman and northern Italian art. They knew that it was an effect whichhad passed from Germany into Italy, but in the liberal air of the olderland it had come to so much more beauty that now, when they found it inits home, it seemed something fetched from over the Alps and coarsened inthe attempt to naturalize it to an alien air. 

In the Germanic Museum they fled to the Italian painters from the Germanpictures they had inspired; in the great hall of the Rathhaus the nobleProcessional of Durer was the more precious, because his Triumph ofMaximilian somehow suggested Mantegna's Triumph of Caesar. There was tobe a banquet in the hall, under the mighty fresco, to welcome the GermanEmperor, coming the next week, and the Rathhaus was full of work-peoplefurbishing it up against his arrival, and making it difficult for thecustodian who had it in charge to show it properly to strangers. She wasof the same enthusiastic sisterhood as the vergeress of St. Lawrence andthe guardian of the old cemetery, and by a mighty effort she prevailedover the workmen so far as to lead her charges out through the corridorwhere the literal conscience of the brothers Kuhn has wrought in the roofto an exact image of a tournament as it was in Nuremberg four hundredyears ago. In this relief, thronged with men and horses, the gala-life ofthe past survives in unexampled fulness; and March blamed himself afterenjoying it for having felt in it that toy-figure quality which seems thefinal effect of the German gothicism in sculpture. 

XLVI. 

On Sunday Mrs. March partially conformed to an earlier New England idealof the day by ceasing from sight-seeing. She could not have understoodthe sermon if she had gone to church, but she appeased the lingeringconscience she had on this point by not going out till afternoon. Thenshe found nothing of the gayety which Sunday afternoon wears in Catholiclands. The people were resting from their week-day labors, but they werenot playing; and the old churches, long since converted to Lutheran uses, were locked against tourist curiosity. 

It was as it should be; it was as it would be at home; and yet in thisancient city, where the past was so much alive in the perpetualpicturesqueness, the Marches felt an incongruity in it; and they werefain to escape from the Protestant silence and seriousness of the streetsto the shade of the public garden they had involuntarily visited theevening of their arrival. 

On a bench sat a quiet, rather dejected man, whom March asked somequestion of their way. He answered in English, and in the parley thatfollowed they discovered that they were all Americans. The strangerproved to be an American of the sort commonest in Germany, and he said hehad returned to his native country to get rid of the ague which he hadtaken on Staten Island. He had been seventeen years in New York, and nowa talk of Tammany and its chances in the next election, of pulls anddeals, of bosses and heelers, grew up between the civic step-brothers, and joined them is a common interest. The German-American said he wasbookkeeper in some glass-works which had been closed by our tariff, andhe confessed that he did not mean to return to us, though he spoke ofGerman affairs with the impartiality of an outsider. He said that theSocialist party was increasing faster than any other, and that thistacitly meant the suppression of rank and the abolition of monarchy. Hewarned March against the appearance of industrial prosperity in Germany;beggary was severely repressed, and if poverty was better clad than withus, it was as hungry and as hopeless in Nuremberg as in New York. Theworking classes were kindly and peaceable; they only knifed each otherquietly on Sunday evenings after having too much beer. 

Presently the stranger rose and bowed to the Marches for good-by; and ashe walked down the aisle of trees in which they had been fittingtogether, he seemed to be retreating farther and farther from suchAmericanism as they had in common. He had reverted to an entirely Germaneffect of dress and figure; his walk was slow and Teutonic; he must be atype of thousands who have returned to the fatherland without wishing toown themselves its children again, and yet out of heart with the onlycountry left them. 

"He was rather pathetic, my dear, " said March, in the discomfort he knewhis wife must be feeling as well as himself. "How odd to have the lidlifted here, and see the same old problems seething and bubbling in thewitch's caldron we call civilization as we left simmering away at home!And how hard to have our tariff reach out and snatch the bread from themouths of those poor glass-workers!"

"I thought that was hard, " she sighed. "It must have been his bread, too. "

"Let's hope it was not his cake, anyway. I suppose, " he added, dreamily, "that what we used to like in Italy was the absence of all the modernactivities. The Italians didn't repel us by assuming to be of our epochin the presence of their monuments; they knew how to behave as pensivememories. I wonder if they're still as charming. "

"Oh, no, " she returned, "nothing is as charming as it used to be. And nowwe need the charm more than ever. "

He laughed at her despair, in the tacit understanding they had lived intothat only one of them was to be desperate at a time, and that they wereto take turns in cheering each other up. "Well, perhaps we don't deserveit. And I'm not sure that we need it so much as we did when we wereyoung. We've got tougher; we can stand the cold facts better now. Theymade me shiver once, but now they give me a sort of agreeable thrill. Besides, if, life kept up its pretty illusions, if it insisted upon beingas charming as it used to be, how could we ever bear to die? We've gotthat to consider. " He yielded to the temptation of his paradox, but hedid not fail altogether of the purpose with which he began, and they tookthe trolley back to their hotel cheerful in the intrepid fancy that theyhad confronted fate when they had only had the hardihood to face aphrase. 

They agreed that now he ought really to find out something about thecontemporary life of Nuremberg, and the next morning he went out beforebreakfast, and strolled through some of the simpler streets, in the hopeof intimate impressions. The peasant women, serving portions of milk fromhouse to house out of the cans in the little wagons which they drewthemselves, were a touch of pleasing domestic comedy; a certain effect oftragedy imparted itself from the lamentations of the sucking-pigs joltedover the pavements in handcarts; a certain majesty from the longprocession of yellow mail-wagons, with drivers in the royal Bavarianblue, trooping by in the cold small rain, impassibly dripping from theirglazed hat-brims upon their uniforms. But he could not feel that thesethings were any of them very poignantly significant; and he covered hisretreat from the actualities of Nuremberg by visiting the chiefbook-store and buying more photographs of the architecture than hewanted, and more local histories than he should ever read. He made a lasteffort for the contemporaneous life by asking the English-speaking clerkif there were any literary men of distinction living in Nuremberg, andthe clerk said there was not one. 

He went home to breakfast wondering if he should be able to make hismeagre facts serve with his wife; but he found her far from any wish tolisten to them. She was intent upon a pair of young lovers, at a tablenear her own, who were so absorbed in each other that they were proofagainst an interest that must otherwise have pierced them through. Thebridegroom, as he would have called himself, was a pretty little Bavarianlieutenant, very dark and regular, and the bride was as pretty and aslittle, but delicately blond. Nature had admirably mated them, and if arthad helped to bring them together through the genius of the bride'smother, who was breakfasting with them, it had wrought almost as fitly. Mrs. March queried impartially who they were, where they met, and how, and just when they were going to be married; and March consented, in hispersonal immunity from their romance, to let it go on under his eyeswithout protest. But later, when they met the lovers in the street, walking arm in arm, with the bride's mother behind them gloating upontheir bliss, he said the woman ought, at her time of life, to be ashamedof such folly. She must know that this affair, by nine chances out often, could not fail to eventuate at the best in a marriage as tiresome asmost other marriages, and yet she was abandoning herself with thoseignorant young people to the illusion that it was the finest and sweetestthing in life. 

"Well, isn't it?" his wife asked. 

"Yes, that's the worst of it. It shows how poverty-stricken life reallyis. We want somehow to believe that each pair of lovers will find thegood we have missed, and be as happy as we expected to be. "

"I think we have been happy enough, and that we've had as much good aswas wholesome for us, " she returned, hurt. 

"You're always so concrete! I meant us in the abstract. But if you willbe personal, I'll say that you've been as happy as you deserve, and gotmore good than you had any right to. "

She laughed with him, and then they laughed again to perceive that theywere walking arm in arm too, like the lovers, whom they were insensiblyfollowing. 

He proposed that while they were in the mood they should go again to theold cemetery, and see the hinged jaw of the murdered Paumgartner, waggingin eternal accusation of his murderess. "It's rather hard on her, that heshould be having the last word, that way, " he said. "She was a woman, nomatter what mistakes she had committed. "

"That's what I call 'banale', " said Mrs. March. 

"It is, rather, " he confessed. "It makes me feel as if I must go to seethe house of Durer, after all. "

"Well, I knew we should have to, sooner or later. "

It was the thing that they had said would not do, in Nuremberg, becauseeverybody did it; but now they hailed a fiacre, and ordered it driven toDurer's house, which they found in a remote part of the town near astretch of the city wall, varied in its picturesqueness by theinterposition of a dripping grove; it was raining again by the time theyreached it. The quarter had lapsed from earlier dignity, and withoutbeing squalid, it looked worn and hard worked; otherwise it could hardlyhave been different in Durer's time. His dwelling, in no way impressiveoutside, amidst the environing quaintness, stood at the corner of anarrow side-hill street that sloped cityward; and within it was strippedbare of all the furniture of life below-stairs, and above was none thecozier for the stiff appointment of a show-house. It was cavernous andcold; but if there had been a fire in the kitchen, and a table laid inthe dining-room, and beds equipped for nightmare, after the Germanfashion, in the empty chambers, one could have imagined a kindly, simple, neighborly existence there. It in no wise suggested the calling of anartist, perhaps because artists had not begun in Durer's time to takethemselves so objectively as they do now, but it implied the life of aprosperous citizen, and it expressed the period. 

The Marches wrote their names in the visitors' book, and paid thevisitor's fee, which also bought them tickets in an annual lottery for areproduction of one of Durer's pictures; and then they came away, by nomeans dissatisfied with his house. By its association with his sojournsin Italy it recalled visits to other shrines, and they had to own that itwas really no worse than Ariosto's house at Ferrara, or Petrarch's atArqua, or Michelangelo's at Florence. "But what I admire, " he said, "isour futility in going to see it. We expected to surprise some quality ofthe man left lying about in the house because he lived and died in it;and because his wife kept him up so close there, and worked him so hardto save his widow from coming to want. "

"Who said she did that?"

"A friend of his who hated her. But he had to allow that she was aGod-fearing woman, and had a New England conscience. "

"Well, I dare say Durer was easy-going. "

"Yes; but I don't like her laying her plans to survive him; though womenalways do that. "

They were going away the next day, and they sat down that evening to afinal supper in such good-humor with themselves that they were willing toinclude a young couple who came to take places at their table, thoughthey would rather have been alone. They lifted their eyes for theirexpected salutation, and recognized Mr. And Mrs. Leffers, of theNorumbia. 

The ladies fell upon each other as if they had been mother and daughter;March and the young man shook hands, in the feeling of passengersmutually endeared by the memories of a pleasant voyage. They arrived atthe fact that Mr. Leffers had received letters in England from hispartners which allowed him to prolong his wedding journey in a tour ofthe continent, while their wives were still exclaiming at their encounterin the same hotel at Nuremberg; and then they all sat down to have, asthe bride said, a real Norumbia time. 

She was one of those young wives who talk always with their eyessubmissively on their husbands, no matter whom they are speaking to; butshe was already unconsciously ruling him in her abeyance. No doubt shewas ruling him for his good; she had a livelier, mind than he, and sheknew more, as the American wives of young American business men alwaysdo, and she was planning wisely for their travels. She recognized hermerit in this devotion with an artless candor, which was typical ratherthan personal. March was glad to go out with Leffers for a little stroll, and to leave Mrs. March to listen to Mrs. Leffers, who did not let themgo without making her husband promise to wrap up well, and not get hisfeet wet. She made March promise not to take him far, and to bring himback early, which he found himself very willing to do, after an exchangeof ideas with Mr. Leffers. The young man began to talk about his wife, inher providential, her almost miraculous adaptation to the sort of man hewas, and when he had once begun to explain what sort of man he was, therewas no end to it, till they rejoined the ladies in the reading-room. 

XLVII. 

The young couple came to the station to see the Marches off after dinnerthe next day; and the wife left a bank of flowers on the seat beside Mrs. March, who said, as soon as they were gone, "I believe I would rathermeet people of our own age after this. I used to think that you couldkeep young by being with young people; but I don't, now. There world isvery different from ours. Our world doesn't really exist any more, but aslong as we keep away from theirs we needn't realize it. Young people, "she went on, "are more practical-minded than we used to be; they're quiteas sentimental; but I don't think they care so much for the higherthings. They're not so much brought up on poetry as we were, " shepursued. "That little Mrs. Leffers would have read Longfellow in ourtime; but now she didn't know of his poem on Nuremberg; she wasintelligent enough about the place, but you could see that its quaintnesswas not so precious as it was to us; not so sacred. " Her tone entreatedhim to find more meaning in her words than she had put into them. "Theycouldn't have felt as we did about that old ivied wall and that grassy, flowery moat under it; and the beautiful Damenthor and that pile-up ofthe roofs from the Burg; and those winding streets with their Gothicfacades all, cobwebbed with trolley wires; and that yellow, aguish-looking river drowsing through the town under the windows of thoseoverhanging houses; and the market-place, and the squares before thechurches, with their queer shops in the nooks and corners round them!"

"I see what you mean. But do you think it's as sacred to us as it wouldhave been twenty-five years ago? I had an irreverent feeling now and thenthat Nuremberg was overdoing Nuremberg. "

"Oh, yes; so had I. We're that modern, if we're not so young as we were. "

"We were very simple, in those days. "

"Well, if we were simple, we knew it!"

"Yes; we used to like taking our unconsciousness to pieces and looking atit. "

"We had a good time. "

"Too good. Sometimes it seems as if it would have lasted longer if it hadnot been so good. We might have our cake now if we hadn't eaten it. "

"It would be mouldy, though. "

"I wonder, " he said, recurring to the Lefferses; "how we really struckthem. "

"Well, I don't believe they thought we ought to be travelling aboutalone, quite, at our age. "

"Oh, not so bad as that!" After a moment he said, "I dare say they don'tgo round quarrelling on their wedding journey, as we did. "

"Indeed they do! They had an awful quarrel just before they got toNuremberg: about his wanting to send some of the baggage to Liverpool byexpress that she wanted to keep with them. But she said it had been alesson, and they were never going to quarrel again. " The elders looked ateach other in the light of experience, and laughed. "Well, " she ended, "that's one thing we're through with. I suppose we've come to feel morealike than we used to. "

"Or not to feel at all. How did they settle it about the baggage?"

"Oh! He insisted on her keeping it with her. " March laughed again, butthis time he laughed alone, and after a while she said: "Well, they gavejust the right relief to Nuremberg, with their good, clean Americanphilistinism. I don't mind their thinking us queer; they must havethought Nuremberg was queer. "

"Yes. We oldsters are always queer to the young. We're eitherridiculously lively and chirpy, or we're ridiculously stiff and grim;they never expect to be like us, and wouldn't, for the world. The worstof it is, we elderly people are absurd to one another; we don't, at thebottom of our hearts, believe we're like that, when we meet. I supposethat arrogant old ass of a Triscoe looks upon me as a grinning dotard. "

"I wonder, " said Mrs. March, "if she's told him yet, " and March perceivedthat she was now suddenly far from the mood of philosophic introspection;but he had no difficulty in following her. 

"She's had time enough. But it was an awkward task Burnamy left to her. "

"Yes, when I think of that, I can hardly forgive him for coming back inthat way. I know she is dead in love with him; but she could only haveaccepted him conditionally. "

"Conditionally to his making it all right with Stoller?"

"Stoller? No! To her father's liking it. "

"Ah, that's quite as hard. What makes you think she accepted him at all?"

"What do you think she was crying about?"

"Well, I have supposed that ladies occasionally shed tears of pity. Ifshe accepted him conditionally she would have to tell her father aboutit. " Mrs. March gave him a glance of silent contempt, and he hastened toatone for his stupidity. "Perhaps she's told him on the instalment plan. She may have begun by confessing that Burnamy had been in Carlsbad. Poorold fellow, I wish we were going to find him in Ansbach! He could makethings very smooth for us. "

"Well, you needn't flatter yourself that you'll find him in Ansbach. I'msure I don't know where he is. "

"You might write to Miss Triscoe and ask. "

"I think I shall wait for Miss Triscoe to write to me, " she said, withdignity. 

"Yes, she certainly owes you that much, after all your suffering for her. I've asked the banker in Nuremberg to forward our letters to the posterestante in Ansbach. Isn't it good to see the crows again, after thoseravens around Carlsbad?"

She joined him in looking at the mild autumnal landscape through the openwindow. The afternoon was fair and warm, and in the level fields bodiesof soldiers were at work with picks and spades, getting the ground readyfor the military manoeuvres; they disturbed among the stubble foragingparties of crows, which rose from time to time with cries of indignantprotest. She said, with a smile for the crows, "Yes. And I'm thankfulthat I've got nothing on my conscience, whatever happens, " she added indismissal of the subject of Burnamy. 

"I'm thankful too, my dear. I'd much rather have things on my own. I'mmore used to that, and I believe I feel less remorse than when you're toblame. "

They might have been carried near this point by those telepathicinfluences which have as yet been so imperfectly studied. It was onlythat morning, after the lapse of a week since Burnamy's furtivereappearance in Carlsbad, that Miss Triscoe spoke to her father about it, and she had at that moment a longing for support and counsel that mightwell have made its mystical appeal to Mrs. March. 

She spoke at last because she could put it off no longer, rather thanbecause the right time had come. She began as they sat at breakfast. "Papa, there is something that I have got to tell you. It is somethingthat you ought to know; but I have put off telling you because--"

She hesitated for the reason, and "Well!" said her father, looking up ather from his second cup of coffee. "What is it?"

Then she answered, "Mr. Burnamy has been here. "

"In Carlsbad? When was he here?"

"The night of the Emperor's birthday. He came into the box when you werebehind the scenes with Mr. March; afterwards I met him in the crowd. "

"Well?"

"I thought you ought to know. Mrs. March said I ought to tell you. "

"Did she say you ought to wait a week?" He gave way to an irascibilitywhich he tried to check, and to ask with indifference, "Why did he comeback?"

"He was going to write about it for that paper in Paris. " The girl hadthe effect of gathering her courage up for a bold plunge. She lookedsteadily at her father, and added: "He said he came back because hecouldn't help it. He--wished to speak with me, He said he knew he had noright to suppose I cared anything about what had happened with him andMr. Stoller. He wanted to come back and tell me--that. "

Her father waited for her to go on, but apparently she was going to leavethe word to him, now. He hesitated to take it, but he asked at last witha mildness that seemed to surprise her, "Have you heard anything from himsince?"

"No. "

"Where is he?"

"I don't know. I told him I could not say what he wished; that I musttell you about it. "

The case was less simple than it would once have been for GeneralTriscoe. There was still his affection for his daughter, his wish for herhappiness, but this had always been subordinate to his sense of his owninterest and comfort, and a question had recently arisen which put hispaternal love and duty in a new light. He was no more explicit withhimself than other men are, and the most which could ever be said of himwithout injustice was that in his dependence upon her he would ratherhave kept his daughter to himself if she could not have been veryprosperously married. On the other hand, if he disliked the man for whomshe now hardly hid her liking, he was not just then ready to go toextremes concerning him. 

"He was very anxious, " she went on, "that you should know just how itwas. He thinks everything of your judgment and--and--opinion. " Thegeneral made a consenting noise in his throat. "He said that he did notwish me to 'whitewash' him to you. He didn't think he had done right; hedidn't excuse himself, or ask you to excuse him unless you could from thestand-point of a gentleman. "

The general made a less consenting noise in his throat, and asked, "Howdo you look at it, yourself, Agatha?"

"I don't believe I quite understand it; but Mrs. March--"

"Oh, Mrs. March!" the general snorted. 

"--says that Mr. March does not think so badly of it as Mr. Burnamydoes. "

"I doubt it. At any rate, I understood March quite differently. "

"She says that he thinks he behaved very nobly afterwards when Mr. Stoller wanted him to help him put a false complexion on it; that it wasall the more difficult for him to do right then, because of his remorsefor what he had done before. " As she spoke on she had become more eager. 

"There's something in that, " the general admitted, with a candor that hemade the most of both to himself and to her. "But I should like to knowwhat Stoller had to say of it all. Is there anything, " he inquired, "anyreason why I need be more explicit about it, just now?"

"N--no. Only, I thought--He thinks so much of your opinion that--if--"

"Oh, he can very well afford to wait. If he values my opinion so highlyhe can give me time to make up my mind. "

"Of course--"

"And I'm not responsible, " the general continued, significantly, "for thedelay altogether. If you had told me this before--Now, I don't knowwhether Stoller is still in town. "

He was not behaving openly with her; but she had not behaved openly withhim. She owned that to herself, and she got what comfort she could fromhis making the affair a question of what Burnamy had done to Stollerrather than of what Burnamy had said to her, and what she had answeredhim. If she was not perfectly clear as to what she wanted to do, orwished to have happen, there was now time and place in which she coulddelay and make sure. The accepted theory of such matters is that peopleknow their minds from the beginning, and that they do not change them. But experience seems to contradict this theory, or else people often actcontrary to their convictions and impulses. If the statistics wereaccessible, it might be found that many potential engagements hovered ina doubtful air, and before they touched the earth in actual promise weredissipated by the play of meteorological chances. 

When General Triscoe put down his napkin in rising he said that he wouldstep round to Pupp's and see if Stoller were still there. But on the wayhe stepped up to Mrs. Adding's hotel on the hill, and he came back, afteran interval which he seemed not to have found long, to report rathercasually that Stoller had left Carlsbad the day before. By this time thefact seemed not to concern Agatha herself very vitally. 

He asked if the Marches had left any address with her, and she answeredthat they had not. They were going to spend a few days in Nuremberg, andthen push on to Holland for Mr. March's after-cure. There was norelevance in his question unless it intimated his belief that she was inconfidential correspondence with Mrs. March, and she met this by sayingthat she was going to write her in care of their bankers; she askedwhether he wished to send any word. 

"No. I understand, " he intimated, "that there is nothing at all in thenature of a--a--an understanding, then, with--"

"No, nothing. "

"Hm!" The general waited a moment. Then he ventured, "Do you care tosay--do you wish me to know--how he took it?"

The tears came into the girl's eyes, but she governed herself to say, "He--he was disappointed. "

"He had no right to be disappointed. "

It was a question, and she answered: "He thought he had. He said--that hewouldn't--trouble me any more. "

The general did not ask at once, "And you don't know where he is now--youhaven't heard anything from him since?"

Agatha flashed through her tears, "Papa!"

"Oh! I beg your pardon. I think you told me. "

PG EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

 Americans are hungrier for royalty than anybody else Effort to get on common ground with an inferior He buys my poverty and not my will Honest selfishness Intrepid fancy that they had confronted fate Less intrusive than if he had not been there Monologue to which the wives of absent-minded men resign Only one of them was to be desperate at a time Reconciliation with death which nature brings to life at last Voting-cattle whom they bought and sold We don't seem so much our own property We get too much into the hands of other people

THEIR SILVER WEDDING JOURNEY

PART III. 

XLVIII. 

At the first station where the train stopped, a young German bowedhimself into the compartment with the Marches, and so visibly resisted animpulse to smoke that March begged him to light his cigarette. In thetalk which this friendly overture led to between them he explained thathe was a railway architect, employed by the government on that line ofroad, and was travelling officially. March spoke of Nuremberg; he ownedthe sort of surfeit he had suffered from its excessive mediaevalism, andthe young man said it was part of the new imperial patriotism to cherishthe Gothic throughout Germany; no other sort of architecture waspermitted in Nuremberg. But they would find enough classicism at Ansbach, he promised them, and he entered with sympathetic intelligence into theirwish to see this former capital when March told him they were going tostop there, in hopes of something typical of the old disjointed Germanyof the petty principalities, the little paternal despotisms now extinct. 

As they talked on, partly in German and partly in English, their purposein visiting Ansbach appeared to the Marches more meditated than it was. In fact it was somewhat accidental; Ansbach was near Nuremberg; it wasnot much out of the way to Holland. They took more and more credit tothemselves for a reasoned and definite motive, in the light of theircompanion's enthusiasm for the place, and its charm began for them withthe drive from the station through streets whose sentiment was bothItalian and French, and where there was a yellowish cast in the gray ofthe architecture which was almost Mantuan. They rested theirsensibilities, so bruised and fretted by Gothic angles and points, against the smooth surfaces of the prevailing classicistic facades of thehouses as they passed, and when they arrived at their hotel, an oldmansion of Versailles type, fronting on a long irregular square plantedwith pollard sycamores, they said that it might as well have been Lucca. 

The archway and stairway of the hotel were draped with the Bavariancolors, and they were obscurely flattered to learn that Prince Leopold, the brother of the Prince-Regent of the kingdom, had taken rooms there, on his way to the manoeuvres at Nuremberg, and was momently expected withhis suite. They realized that they were not of the princely party, however, when they were told that he had sole possession of thedining-room, and they went out to another hotel, and had their supper inkeeping delightfully native. People seemed to come there to write theirletters and make up their accounts, as well as to eat their suppers; theycalled for stationery like characters in old comedy, and the clatter ofcrockery and the scratching of pens went on together; and fortune offeredthe Marches a delicate reparation for their exclusion from their ownhotel in the cold popular reception of the prince which they got backjust in time to witness. A very small group of people, mostly women andboys, had gathered to see him arrive, but there was no cheering or anysign of public interest. Perhaps he personally merited none; he looked adull, sad man, with his plain, stubbed features; and after he had mountedto his apartment, the officers of his staff stood quite across thelanding, and barred the passage of the Americans, ignoring even Mrs. March's presence, as they talked together. 

"Well, my dear, " said her husband, "here you have it at last. This iswhat you've been living for, ever since we came to Germany. It's a greatmoment. "

"Yes. What are you going to do?"

"Who? I? Oh, nothing! This is your affair; it's for you to act. "

If she had been young, she might have withered them with a glance; shedoubted now if her dim eyes would have any such power; but she advancedsteadily upon them, and then the officers seemed aware of her, and stoodaside. 

March always insisted that they stood aside apologetically, but she heldas firmly that they stood aside impertinently, or at least indifferently, and that the insult to her American womanhood was perfectly ideal. It istrue that nothing of the kind happened again during their stay at thehotel; the prince's officers were afterwards about in the corridors andon the stairs, but they offered no shadow of obstruction to her going andcoming, and the landlord himself was not so preoccupied with hishighhotes but he had time to express his grief that she had been obligedto go out for supper. 

They satisfied the passion for the little obsolete capital which had beengrowing upon them by strolling past the old Resident at an hour sofavorable for a first impression. It loomed in the gathering dusk evenvaster than it was, and it was really vast enough for the pride of a Kingof France, much more a Margrave of Ansbach. Time had blackened andblotched its coarse limestone walls to one complexion with the statuesswelling and strutting in the figure of Roman legionaries before it, andstanding out against the evening sky along its balustraded roof, and hadsoftened to the right tint the stretch of half a dozen houses withmansard roofs and renaissance facades obsequiously in keeping with theVersailles ideal of a Resident. In the rear, and elsewhere at fitdistance from its courts, a native architecture prevailed; and at nogreat remove the Marches found themselves in a simple German town again. There they stumbled upon a little bookseller's shop blinking in a quietcorner, and bought three or four guides and small histories of Ansbach, which they carried home, and studied between drowsing and waking. Thewonderful German syntax seems at its most enigmatical in this sort ofliterature, and sometimes they lost themselves in its labyrinthscompletely, and only made their way perilously out with the help ofcumulative declensions, past articles and adjectives blindly seekingtheir nouns, to long-procrastinated verbs dancing like swamp-fires in thedistance. They emerged a little less ignorant than they went in, andbetter qualified than they would otherwise have been for their secondvisit to the Schloss, which they paid early the next morning. 

They were so early, indeed, that when they mounted from the great innercourt, much too big for Ansbach, if not for the building, and rung thecustodian's bell, a smiling maid who let them into an ante-room, whereshe kept on picking over vegetables for her dinner, said the custodianwas busy, and could not be seen till ten o'clock. She seemed, in her nookof the pretentious pile, as innocently unconscious of its history as anyhen-sparrow who had built her nest in some coign of its architecture; andher friendly, peaceful domesticity remained a wholesome human backgroundto the tragedies and comedies of the past, and held them in a picturesquerelief in which they were alike tolerable and even charming. 

The history of Ansbach strikes its roots in the soil of fable, and aboveground is a gnarled and twisted growth of good and bad from the time ofthe Great Charles to the time of the Great Frederick. Between these timesshe had her various rulers, ecclesiastical and secular, in various formsof vassalage to the empire; but for nearly four centuries her sovereigntywas in the hands of the margraves, who reigned in a constantly increasingsplendor till the last sold her outright to the King of Prussia in 1791, and went to live in England on the proceeds. She had taken her part inthe miseries and glories of the wars that desolated Germany, but afterthe Reformation, when she turned from the ancient faith to which she owedher cloistered origin under St. Gumpertus, her people had peace exceptwhen their last prince sold them to fight the battles of others. It is inthis last transaction that her history, almost in the moment when sheceased to have a history of her own, links to that of the modern world, and that it came home to the Marches in their national character; for twothousand of those poor Ansbach mercenaries were bought up by England andsent to put down a rebellion in her American colonies. 

Humanly, they were more concerned for the Last Margrave, because ofcertain qualities which made him the Best Margrave, in spite of thedefects of his qualities. He was the son of the Wild Margrave, equallyknown in the Ansbach annals, who may not have been the Worst Margrave, but who had certainly a bad trick of putting his subjects to deathwithout trial, and in cases where there was special haste, with his ownhand. He sent his son to the university at Utrecht because he believedthat the republican influences in Holland would be wholesome for him, andthen he sent him to travel in Italy; but when the boy came home lookingfrail and sick, the Wild Margrave charged his official travellingcompanion with neglect, and had the unhappy Hofrath Meyer hanged withoutprocess for this crime. One of the gentlemen of his realm, for apasquinade on the Margrave, was brought to the scaffold; he had, atvarious times, twenty-two of his soldiers shot with arrows and bullets orhanged for desertion, besides many whose penalties his clemency commutedto the loss of an ear or a nose; a Hungarian who killed his hunting-dog, he had broken alive on the wheel. A soldier's wife was hanged forcomplicity in a case of desertion; a young soldier who eloped with thegirl he loved was brought to Ansbach from a neighboring town, and hangedwith her on the same gallows. A sentry at the door of one of theMargrave's castles amiably complied with the Margrave's request to lethim take his gun for a moment, on the pretence of wishing to look at it. For this breach of discipline the prince covered him with abuse and gavehim over to his hussars, who bound him to a horse's tail and dragged himthrough the streets; he died of his injuries. The kennel-master who hadcharge of the Margrave's dogs was accused of neglecting them: withoutfurther inquiry the Margrave rode to the man's house and shot him down onhis own threshold. A shepherd who met the Margrave on a shying horse didnot get his flock out of the way quickly enough; the Margrave demandedthe pistols of a gentleman in his company, but he answered that they werenot loaded, and the shepherd's life was saved. As they returned home thegentleman fired them off. "What does that mean?" cried the Margrave, furiously. "It means, gracious lord, that you will sleep sweeter tonight, for not having heard my pistols an hour sooner. "

From this it appears that the gracious lord had his moments of regret;but perhaps it is not altogether strange that when he died, the wholepopulation "stormed through the streets to meet his funeral train, not inawe-stricken silence to meditate on the fall of human grandeur, but tounite in an eager tumult of rejoicing, as if some cruel brigand who hadlong held the city in terror were delivered over to them bound and inchains. " For nearly thirty years this blood-stained miscreant had reignedover his hapless people in a sovereign plenitude of power, which by thetheory of German imperialism in our day is still a divine right. 

They called him the Wild Margrave, in their instinctive revolt from thebelief that any man not untamably savage could be guilty of hisatrocities; and they called his son the Last Margrave, with a touch ofthe poetry which perhaps records a regret for their extinction as astate. He did not harry them as his father had done; his mild rule wasthe effect partly of the indifference and distaste for his country bred, by his long sojourns abroad; but doubtless also it was the effect of akindly nature. Even in the matter of selling a few thousands of them tofight the battles of a bad cause on the other side of the world, he hadthe best of motives, and faithfully applied the proceeds to the paymentof the state debt and the embellishment of the capital. 

His mother was a younger sister of Frederick the Great, and was soconstantly at war with her husband that probably she had nothing to dowith the marriage which the Wild Margrave forced upon their son. Lovecertainly had nothing to do with it, and the Last Margrave early escapedfrom it to the society of Mlle. Clairon, the great French tragedienne, whom he met in Paris, and whom he persuaded to come and make her homewith him in Ansbach. She lived there seventeen years, and though alwaysan alien, she bore herself with kindness to all classes, and is stillremembered there by the roll of butter which calls itself a Klarungsweckein its imperfect French. 

No roll of butter records in faltering accents the name of the brilliantand disdainful English lady who replaced this poor tragic muse in theMargrave's heart, though the lady herself lived to be the last Margravineof Ansbach, where everybody seems to have hated her with a passion whichshe doubtless knew how to return. She was the daughter of the Earl ofBerkeley, and the wife of Lord Craven, a sufficiently unfaithful andunworthy nobleman by her account, from whom she was living apart when theMargrave asked her to his capital. There she set herself to oust Mlle. Clairon with sneers and jests for the theatrical style which the actresscould not outlive. Lady Craven said she was sure Clairon's nightcap mustbe a crown of gilt paper; and when Clairon threatened to kill herself, and the Margrave was alarmed, "You forget, " said Lady Craven, "thatactresses only stab themselves under their sleeves. "

She drove Clairon from Ansbach, and the great tragedienne returned toParis, where she remained true to her false friend, and from time to timewrote him letters full of magnanimous counsel and generous tenderness. But she could not have been so good company as Lady Craven, who was avery gifted person, and knew how to compose songs and sing them, andwrite comedies and play them, and who could keep the Margrave amused inmany ways. When his loveless and childless wife died he married theEnglish woman, but he grew more and more weary of his dull little courtand his dull little country, and after a while, considering the uncertaintenure sovereigns had of their heads since the French King had lost his, and the fact that he had no heirs to follow him in his principality, heresolved to cede it for a certain sum to Prussia. To this end his newwife's urgence was perhaps not wanting. They went to England, where sheoutlived him ten years, and wrote her memoirs. 

The custodian of the Schloss came at last, and the Marches saw instantlythat he was worth waiting for. He was as vainglorious of the palace asany grand-monarching margrave of them all. He could not have been morepersonally superb in showing their different effigies if they had beenhis own family portraits, and he would not spare the strangers a singlesplendor of the twenty vast, handsome, tiresome, Versailles-like rooms heled them through. The rooms were fatiguing physically, but so poignantlyinteresting that Mrs. March would not have missed, though she perished ofher pleasure, one of the things she saw. She had for once a surfeit ofhighhoting in the pictures, the porcelains, the thrones and canopies, thetapestries, the historical associations with the margraves and theirmarriages, with the Great Frederick and the Great Napoleon. The GreatNapoleon's man Bernadotte made the Schloss his headquarters when heoccupied Ansbach after Austerlitz, and here he completed his arrangementsfor taking her bargain from Prussia and handing it over to Bavaria, withwhom it still remains. Twice the Great Frederick had sojourned in thepalace; visiting his sister Louise, the wife of the Wild Margrave, andmore than once it had welcomed her next neighbor and sister Wilhelmina, the Margravine of Baireuth, whose autobiographic voice, piercinglyplaintive and reproachful, seemed to quiver in the air. Here, oddlyenough, the spell of the Wild Margrave weakened in the presence of hisportrait, which signally failed to justify his fame of furious tyrant. That seems, indeed, to have been rather the popular and historicalconception of him than the impression he made upon his exaltedcontemporaries. The Margravine of Baireuth at any rate could so farexcuse her poor blood-stained brother-in-law as to say: "The Margrave ofAnsbach . . . Was a young prince who had been very badly educated. Hecontinually ill-treated my sister; they led the life of cat and dog. Mysister, it is true, was sometimes in fault . . . . Her education had beenvery bad. . . She was married at fourteen. "

At parting, the custodian told the Marches that he would easily haveknown them for Americans by the handsome fee they gave him; they cameaway flown with his praise; and their national vanity was again flatteredwhen they got out into the principal square of Ansbach. There, in abookseller's window, they found among the pamphlets teaching differentlanguages without a master, one devoted to the Amerikanische Sprache asdistinguished from the Englische Sprache. That there could be no mistake, the cover was printed with colors in a German ideal of the star-spangledbanner; and March said he always knew that we had a language of our own, and that now he was going in to buy that pamphlet and find out what itwas like. He asked the young shop-woman how it differed from English, which she spoke fairly well from having lived eight years in Chicago. Shesaid that it differed from the English mainly in emphasis andpronunciation. "For instance, the English say 'HALF past', and theAmericans 'Half PAST'; the English say 'laht' and the Americans say'late'. "

The weather had now been clear quite long enough, and it was rainingagain, a fine, bitter, piercing drizzle. They asked the girl if it alwaysrained in Ansbach; and she owned that it nearly always did. She said thatsometimes she longed for a little American summer; that it was neverquite warm in Ansbach; and when they had got out into the rain, Marchsaid: "It was very nice to stumble on Chicago in an Ansbach book-store. You ought to have told her you had a married daughter in Chicago. Don'tmiss another such chance. "

"We shall need another bag if we keep on buying books at this rate, " saidhis wife with tranquil irrelevance; and not to give him time for protest;she pushed him into a shop where the valises in the window perhapssuggested her thought. March made haste to forestall her there by sayingthey were Americans, but the mistress of the shop seemed to have hermisgivings, and "Born Americans, perhaps?" she ventured. She had probablynever met any but the naturalized sort, and supposed these were the onlysort. March re-assured her, and then she said she had a son living inJersey City, and she made March take his address that he might tell himhe had seen his mother; she had apparently no conception what a great wayJersey City is from New York. 

Mrs. March would not take his arm when they came out. "Now, that is whatI never can get used to in you, Basil, and I've tried to palliate it fortwenty-seven years. You know you won't look up that poor woman's son! Whydid you let her think you would?"

"How could I tell her I wouldn't? Perhaps I shall. "

"No, no! You never will. I know you're good and kind, and that's why Ican't understand your being so cruel. When we get back, how will you everfind time to go over to Jersey City?"

He could not tell, but at last he said: "I'll tell you what! You mustkeep me up to it. You know how much you enjoy making me do my duty, andthis will be such a pleasure!"

She laughed forlornly, but after a moment she took his arm; and he began, from the example of this good mother, to philosophize the continuoussimplicity and sanity of the people of Ansbach under all their civicchanges. Saints and soldiers, knights and barons, margraves, princes, kings, emperors, had come and gone, and left their single-hearted, friendly subjectfolk pretty much what they found them. The people hadsuffered and survived through a thousand wars, and apparently prosperedon under all governments and misgovernments. When the court was mostFrench, most artificial, most vicious, the citizen life must haveremained immutably German, dull, and kind. After all, he said, humanityseemed everywhere to be pretty safe, and pretty much the same. 

"Yes, that is all very well, " she returned, "and you can theorizeinterestingly enough; but I'm afraid that poor mother, there, had no morereality for you than those people in the past. You appreciate her as atype, and you don't care for her as a human being. You're nothing but adreamer, after all. I don't blame you, " she went on. "It's yourtemperament, and you can't change, now. "

"I may change for the worse, " he threatened. "I think I have, already. Idon't believe I could stand up to Dryfoos, now, as I did for poor oldLindau, when I risked your bread and butter for his. I look back inwonder and admiration at myself. I've steadily lost touch with life sincethen. I'm a trifler, a dilettante, and an amateur of the right and thegood as I used to be when I was young. Oh, I have the grace to betroubled at times, now, and once I never was. It never occurred to methen that the world wasn't made to interest me, or at the best toinstruct me, but it does, now, at times. "

She always came to his defence when he accused himself; it was the bestground he could take with her. "I think you behaved very well withBurnamy. You did your duty then. "

"Did I? I'm not so sure. At any rate, it's the last time I shall do it. I've served my term. I think I should tell him that he was all right inthat business with Stoller, if I were to meet him, now. "

"Isn't it strange, " she said, provisionally, "that we don't come upon atrace of him anywhere in Ansbach?"

"Ah, you've been hoping he would turn up!"

"Yes. I don't deny it. I feel very unhappy about him. "

"I don't. He's too much like me. He would have been quite capable ofpromising that poor woman to look up her son in Jersey City. When I thinkof that, I have no patience with Burnamy. "

"I am going to ask the landlord about him, now he's got rid of hishighhotes, " said Mrs. March. 

XLIX. 

They went home to their hotel for their midday dinner, and to the comfortof having it nearly all to themselves. Prince Leopold had risen early, like all the hard-working potentates of the continent, and got away tothe manoeuvres somewhere at six o'clock; the decorations had beenremoved, and the court-yard where the hired coach and pair of the princehad rolled in the evening before had only a few majestic ducks waddlingabout in it and quacking together, indifferent to the presence of ayellow mail-wagon, on which the driver had been apparently dozing tillthe hour of noon should sound. He sat there immovable, but at the laststroke of the clock he woke up and drove vigorously away to the station. 

The dining-room which they had been kept out of by the prince the nightbefore was not such as to embitter the sense of their wrong by itssplendor. After all, the tastes of royalty must be simple, if the princemight have gone to the Schloss and had chosen rather to stay at thismodest hotel; but perhaps the Schloss was reserved for more immediateroyalty than the brothers of prince-regents; and in that case he couldnot have done better than dine at the Golden Star. If he paid no morethan two marks, he dined as cheaply as a prince could wish, and asabundantly. The wine at Ansbach was rather thin and sour, but the bread, March declared, was the best bread in the whole world, not excepting thebread of Carlsbad. 

After dinner the Marches had some of the local pastry, not soincomparable as the bread, with their coffee, which they had served themin a pavilion of the beautiful garden remaining to the hotel from thetime when it was a patrician mansion. The garden had roses in it andseveral sorts of late summer flowers, as well as ripe cherries, currants, grapes, and a Virginia-creeper red with autumn, all harmoniouslycontemporaneous, as they might easily be in a climate where no one of theseasons can very well know itself from the others. It had not beenraining for half an hour, and the sun was scalding hot, so that theshelter of their roof was very grateful, and the puddles of the pathswere drying up with the haste which puddles have to make in Germany, between rains, if they are ever going to dry up at all. 

The landlord came out to see if they were well served, and he wassincerely obliging in the English he had learned as a waiter in London. Mrs. March made haste to ask him if a young American of the name ofBurnamy had been staying with him a few weeks before; and she describedBurnamy's beauty and amiability so vividly that the landlord, if he hadbeen a woman, could not have failed to remember him. But he failed, witha real grief, apparently, and certainly a real politeness, to recalleither his name or his person. The landlord was an intelligent, good-looking young fellow; he told them that he was lately married, andthey liked him so much that they were sorry to see him afterwardsprivately boxing the ears of the piccolo, the waiter's little understudy. Perhaps the piccolo deserved it, but they would rather not have witnessedhis punishment; his being in a dress-coat seemed to make it also anindignity. 

In the late afternoon they went to the cafe in the old Orangery of theSchloss for a cup of tea, and found themselves in the company of severalAnsbach ladies who had brought their work, in the evident habit of comingthere every afternoon for their coffee and for a dish of gossip. Theywere kind, uncomely, motherly-looking bodies; one of them combed her hairat the table; and they all sat outside of the cafe with their feet on theborders of the puddles which had not dried up there in the shade of thebuilding. 

A deep lawn, darkened at its farther edge by the long shadows of trees, stretched before them with the sunset light on it, and it was all veryquiet and friendly. The tea brought to the Marches was brewed from someherb apparently of native growth, with bits of what looked like willowleaves in it, but it was flavored with a clove in each cup, and they satcontentedly over it and tried to make out what the Ansbach ladies were, talking about. These had recognized the strangers for Americans, and oneof them explained that Americans spoke the same language as the Englishand yet were not quite the same people. 

"She differs from the girl in the book-store, " said March, translating tohis wife. "Let us get away before she says that we are not so nice as theEnglish, " and they made off toward the avenue of trees beyond the lawn. 

There were a few people walking up and down in the alley, making the mostof the moment of dry weather. They saluted one another likeacquaintances, and three clean-shaven, walnut-faced old peasants bowed inresponse to March's stare, with a self-respectful civility. They wereyeomen of the region of Ansbach, where the country round about is dottedwith their cottages, and not held in vast homeless tracts by the noblesas in North Germany. 

The Bavarian who had imparted this fact to March at breakfast, notwithout a certain tacit pride in it to the disadvantage of the Prussians, was at the supper table, and was disposed to more talk, which he managedin a stout, slow English of his own. He said he had never really spokenEnglish with an English-speaking person before, or at all since hestudied it in school at Munich. 

"I should be afraid to put my school-boy German against your English, "March said, and, when he had understood, the other laughed for pleasure, and reported the compliment to his wife in their own parlance. "YouGermans certainly beat us in languages. "

"Oh, well, " he retaliated, "the Americans beat us in some other things, "and Mrs. March felt that this was but just; she would have liked tomention a few, but not ungraciously; she and the German lady kept smilingacross the table, and trying detached vocables of their respectivetongues upon each other. 

The Bavarian said he lived in Munich still, but was in Ansbach on anaffair of business; he asked March if he were not going to see themanoeuvres somewhere. Till now the manoeuvres had merely been theinteresting background of their travel; but now, hearing that the Emperorof Germany, the King of Saxony, the Regent of Bavaria, and the King ofWurtemberg, the Grand-Dukes of Weimar and Baden, with visiting potentatesof all sorts, and innumerable lesser highhotes, foreign and domestic, were to be present, Mrs. March resolved that they must go to at least oneof the reviews. 

"If you go to Frankfort, you can see the King of Italy too, " said theBavarian, but he owned that they probably could not get into a hotelthere, and he asked why they should not go to Wurzburg, where they couldsee all the sovereigns except the King of Italy. 

"Wurzburg? Wurzburg?" March queried of his wife. "Where did we hear ofthat place?"

"Isn't it where Burnamy said Mr. Stoller had left his daughters atschool?"

"So it is! And is that on the way to the Rhine?" he asked the Bavarian. 

"No, no! Wurzburg is on the Main, about five hours from Ansbach. And itis a very interesting place. It is where the good wine comes from. "

"Oh, yes, " said March, and in their rooms his wife got out all theirguides and maps and began to inform herself and to inform him aboutWurzburg. But first she said it was very cold and he must order some firemade in the tall German stove in their parlor. The maid who came said"Gleich, " but she did not come back, and about the time they were gettingfurious at her neglect, they began getting warm. He put his hand on thestove and found it hot; then he looked down for a door in the stove wherehe might shut a damper; there was no door. 

"Good heavens!" he shouted. "It's like something in a dream, " and he ranto pull the bell for help. 

"No, no! Don't ring! It will make us ridiculous. They'll think Americansdon't know anything. There must be some way of dampening the stove; andif there isn't, I'd rather suffocate than give myself away. " Mrs. Marchran and opened the window, while her husband carefully examined the stoveat every point, and explored the pipe for the damper in vain. "Can't youfind it?" The night wind came in raw and damp, and threatened to blowtheir lamp out, and she was obliged to shut the window. 

"Not a sign of it. I will go down and ask the landlord in strictconfidence how they dampen their stoves in Ansbach. "

"Well, if you must. It's getting hotter every moment. " She followed himtimorously into the corridor, lit by a hanging lamp, turned low for thenight. 

He looked at his watch; it was eleven o'clock. "I'm afraid they're all inbed. "

"Yes; you mustn't go! We must try to find out for ourselves. What canthat door be for?"

It was a low iron door, half the height of a man, in the wall near theirroom, and it yielded to his pull. "Get a candle, " he whispered, and whenshe brought it, he stooped to enter the doorway. 

"Oh, do you think you'd better?" she hesitated. 

"You can come, too, if you're afraid. You've always said you wanted todie with me. "

"Well. But you go first. "

He disappeared within, and then came back to the doorway. "Just come inhere, a moment. " She found herself in a sort of antechamber, half theheight of her own room, and following his gesture she looked down wherein one corner some crouching monster seemed showing its fiery teeth in agrin of derision. This grin was the damper of their stove, and this waswhere the maid had kindled the fire which had been roasting them alive, and was still joyously chuckling to itself. "I think that Munich man waswrong. I don't believe we beat the Germans in anything. There isn't ahotel in the United States where the stoves have no front doors, andevery one of them has the space of a good-sized flat given up to theconvenience of kindling a fire in it. "

L. 

After a red sunset of shameless duplicity March was awakened to a rainymorning by the clinking of cavalry hoofs on the pavement of thelong-irregular square before the hotel, and he hurried out to see thepassing of the soldiers on their way to the manoeuvres. They were troopsof all arms, but mainly infantry, and as they stumped heavily through thegroups of apathetic citizens in their mud-splashed boots, they took thesteady downpour on their dripping helmets. Some of them were smoking, butnone smiling, except one gay fellow who made a joke to a serving-maid onthe sidewalk. An old officer halted his staff to scold a citizen who hadgiven him a mistaken direction. The shame of the erring man was great, and the pride of a fellow-citizen who corrected him was not less, thoughthe arrogant brute before whom they both cringed used them with equalscorn; the younger officers listened indifferently round on horsebackbehind the glitter of their eyeglasses, and one of them amused himself byturning the silver bangles on his wrist. 

Then the files of soldier slaves passed on, and March crossed the bridgespanning the gardens in what had been the city moat, and found his way tothe market-place, under the walls of the old Gothic church of St. Gumpertus. The market, which spread pretty well over the square, seemedto be also a fair, with peasants' clothes and local pottery for sale, aswell as fruits and vegetables, and large baskets of flowers, with oldwomen squatting before them. It was all as picturesque as the marketsused to be in Montreal and Quebec, and in a cloudy memory of his weddingjourney long before, he bought so lavishly of the flowers to carry backto his wife that a little girl, who saw his arm-load from her window ashe returned, laughed at him, and then drew shyly back. Her laugh remindedhim how many happy children he had seen in Germany, and how freely theyseemed to play everywhere, with no one to make them afraid. When theygrow up the women laugh as little as the men, whose rude toil thesoldiering leaves them to. 

He got home with his flowers, and his wife took them absently, and madehim join her in watching the sight which had fascinated her in the streetunder their windows. A slender girl, with a waist as slim as a corsetedofficer's, from time to time came out of the house across the way to thefirewood which had been thrown from a wagon upon the sidewalk there. Eachtime she embraced several of the heavy four-foot logs and disappearedwith them in-doors. Once she paused from her work to joke with awell-dressed man who came by; and seemed to find nothing odd in her work;some gentlemen lounging at the window over head watched her with noapparent sense of anomaly. 

"What do you think of that?" asked Mrs. March. "I think it's goodexercise for the girl, and I should like to recommend it to those fatfellows at the window. I suppose she'll saw the wood in the cellar, andthen lug it up stairs, and pile it up in the stoves' dressing-rooms. "

"Don't laugh! It's too disgraceful. "

"Well, I don't know! If you like, I'll offer these gentlemen across theway your opinion of it in the language of Goethe and Schiller. "

"I wish you'd offer my opinion of them. They've been staring in here withan opera-glass. "

"Ah, that's a different affair. There isn't much going on in Ansbach, andthey have to make the most of it. "

The lower casements of the houses were furnished with mirrors set atright angles with them, and nothing which went on in the streets waslost. Some of the streets were long and straight, and at rare momentsthey lay full of sun. At such times the Marches were puzzled by the sightof citizens carrying open umbrellas, and they wondered if they hadforgotten to put them down, or thought it not worth while in the briefrespites from the rain, or were profiting by such rare occasions to drythem; and some other sights remained baffling to the last. Once a manwith his hands pinioned before him, and a gendarme marching stolidlyafter him with his musket on his shoulder, passed under their windows;but who he was, or what he, had done, or was to suffer, they never knew. Another time a pair went by on the way to the railway station: a youngman carrying an umbrella under his arm, and a very decent-looking oldwoman lugging a heavy carpet bag, who left them to the lasting questionwhether she was the young man's servant in her best clothes, or merelyhis mother. 

Women do not do everything in Ansbach, however, the sacristans being men, as the Marches found when they went to complete their impression of thecourtly past of the city by visiting the funeral chapel of the margravesin the crypt of St. Johannis Church. In the little ex-margravely capitalthere was something of the neighborly interest in the curiosity ofstrangers which endears Italian witness. The white-haired street-sweeperof Ansbach, who willingly left his broom to guide them to the house ofthe sacristan, might have been a street-sweeper in Vicenza; and the oldsacristan, when he put his velvet skull-cap out of an upper window andprofessed his willingness to show them the chapel, disappointed them bysaying "Gleich!" instead of "Subito!" The architecture of the houses wasa party to the illusion. St. Johannis, like the older church of St. Gumpertus, is Gothic, with the two unequal towers which seem distinctiveof Ansbach; at the St. Gumpertus end of the place where they both standthe dwellings are Gothic too, and might be in Hamburg; but at the St. Johannis end they seem to have felt the exotic spirit of the court, andare of a sort of Teutonized renaissance. 

The rococo margraves and margravines used of course to worship in St. Johannis Church. Now they all, such as did not marry abroad, lie in thecrypt of the church, in caskets of bronze and copper and marble, withdraperies of black samite, more and more funereally vainglorious to thelast. Their courtly coffins are ranged in a kind of hemicycle, with thelittle coffins of the children that died before they came to theknowledge of their greatness. On one of these a kneeling figurine inbronze holds up the effigy of the child within; on another the epitaphplays tenderly with the fate of a little princess, who died in her firstyear. 

 In the Rose-month was this sweet Rose taken. For the Rose-kind hath she earth forsaken. The Princess is the Rose, that here no longer blows. From the stem by death's hand rudely shaken. Then rest in the Rose-house. Little Princess-Rosebud dear! There life's Rose shall bloom again In Heaven's sunshine clear. 

While March struggled to get this into English words, two German ladies, who had made themselves of his party, passed reverently away and left himto pay the sacristan alone. 

"That is all right, " he said, when he came out. "I think we got the mostvalue; and they didn't look as if they could afford it so well; thoughyou never can tell, here. These ladies may be the highest kind ofhighhotes practising a praiseworthy economy. I hope the lesson won't belost on us. They have saved enough by us for their coffee at theOrangery. Let us go and have a little willow-leaf tea!"

The Orangery perpetually lured them by what it had kept of the days whenan Orangery was essential to the self-respect of every sovereign prince, and of so many private gentlemen. On their way they always passed thestatue of Count Platen, the dull poet whom Heine's hate would havedelivered so cruelly over to an immortality of contempt, but who standsthere near the Schloss in a grass-plot prettily planted with flowers, andignores his brilliant enemy in the comfortable durability of bronze; andthere always awaited them in the old pleasaunce the pathos of KasparHauser's fate; which his murder affixes to it with a red stain. 

After their cups of willow leaves at the cafe they went up into that nookof the plantation where the simple shaft of church-warden's Gothiccommemorates the assassination on the spot where it befell. Here thehapless youth, whose mystery will never be fathomed on earth, used tocome for a little respite from his harsh guardian in Ansbach, homesickfor the kindness of his Nuremberg friends; and here his murderer foundhim and dealt him the mortal blow. 

March lingered upon the last sad circumstance of the tragedy in which thewounded boy dragged himself home, to suffer the suspicion and neglect ofhis guardian till death attested his good faith beyond cavil. He saidthis was the hardest thing to bear in all his story, and that he wouldlike to have a look into the soul of the dull, unkind wretch who had somisread his charge. He was going on with an inquiry that pleased himmuch, when his wife pulled him abruptly away. 

"Now, I see, you are yielding to the fascination of it, and you arewanting to take the material from Burnamy!"

"Oh, well, let him have the material; he will spoil it. And I can alwaysreject it, if he offers it to 'Every Other Week'. "

"I could believe, after your behavior to that poor woman about her son inJersey City, you're really capable of it. "

"What comprehensive inculpation! I had forgotten about that poor woman. "

LI. 

The letters which March had asked his Nuremberg banker to send them camejust as they were leaving Ansbach. The landlord sent them down to thestation, and Mrs. March opened them in the train, and read them first sothat she could prepare him if there were anything annoying in them, aswell as indulge her livelier curiosity. 

"They're from both the children, " she said, without waiting for him toask. "You can look at them later. There's a very nice letter from Mrs. Adding to me, and one from dear little Rose for you. " Then she hesitated, with her hand on a letter faced down in her lap. "And there's one fromAgatha Triscoe, which I wonder what you'll think of. " She delayed again, and then flashed it open before him, and waited with a sort ofimpassioned patience while he read it. 

He read it, and gave it back to her. "There doesn't seem to be very muchin it. "

"That's it! Don't you think I had a right to there being something in it, after all I did for her?"

"I always hoped you hadn't done anything for her, but if you have, whyshould she give herself away on paper? It's a very proper letter. "

"It's a little too proper, and it's the last I shall have to do with her. She knew that I should be on pins and needles till I heard how her fatherhad taken Burnamy's being there, that night, and she doesn't say a wordabout it. "

"The general may have had a tantrum that she couldn't describe. Perhapsshe hasn't told him, yet. "

"She would tell him instantly!" cried Mrs. March who began to find reasonin the supposition, as well as comfort for the hurt which the girl'sreticence had given her. "Or if she wouldn't, it would be because she waswaiting for the best chance. "

"That would be like the wise daughter of a difficult father. She may bewaiting for the best chance to say how he took it. No, I'm all for MissTriscoe, and I hope that now, if she's taken herself off our hands, she'll keep off. "

"It's altogether likely that he's made her promise not to tell meanything about it, " Mrs. March mused aloud. 

"That would be unjust to a person who had behaved so discreetly as youhave, " said her husband. 

They were on their way to Wurzburg, and at the first station, which was ajunction, a lady mounted to their compartment just before the train beganto move. She was stout and middle-aged, and had never been pretty, butshe bore herself with a kind of authority in spite of her thread gloves, her dowdy gray travelling-dress, and a hat of lower middle-class Englishtastelessness. She took the only seat vacant, a backward-riding placebeside a sleeping passenger who looked like a commercial traveller, butshe seemed ill at ease in it, and March offered her his seat. Sheaccepted it very promptly, and thanked him for it in the English of aGerman, and Mrs. March now classed her as a governess who had beenteaching in England and had acquired the national feeling for dress. Butin this character she found her interesting, and even a little pathetic, and she made her some overtures of talk which the other met eagerlyenough. They were now running among low hills, not so picturesque asthose between Eger and Nuremberg, but of much the same toylike quaintnessin the villages dropped here and there in their valleys. One small town, completely walled, with its gray houses and red roofs, showed through thegreen of its trees and gardens so like a colored print in a child'sstory-book that Mrs. March cried out for joy in it, and then accountedfor her rapture by explaining to the stranger that they were Americansand had never been in Germany before. The lady was not visibly affectedby the fact, she said casually that she had often been in that littletown, which she named; her uncle had a castle in the country back of it, and she came with her husband for the shooting in the autumn. By anatural transition she spoke of her children, for whom she had an Englishgoverness; she said she had never been in England, but had learnt thelanguage from a governess in her own childhood; and through it all Mrs. March perceived that she was trying to impress them with her consequence. To humor her pose, she said they had been looking up the scene of KasparHauser's death at Ansbach; and at this the stranger launched into suchintimate particulars concerning him, and was so familiar at first handswith the facts of his life, that Mrs. March let her run on, too muchamused with her pretensions to betray any doubt of her. She wondered ifMarch were enjoying it all as much, and from time to time she tried tocatch his eye, while the lady talked constantly and rather loudly, helping herself out with words from them both when her English failedher. In the safety of her perfect understanding of the case, Mrs. Marchnow submitted farther, and even suffered some patronage from her, whichin another mood she would have met with a decided snub. 

As they drew in among the broad vine-webbed slopes of the Wurzburg, hills, the stranger said she was going to change there, and take a trainon to Berlin. Mrs. March wondered whether she would be able to keep upthe comedy to the last; and she had to own that she carried it off veryeasily when the friends whom she was expecting did not meet her on thearrival of their train. She refused March's offers of help, and remainedquietly seated while he got out their wraps and bags. She returned with ahardy smile the cold leave Mrs. March took of her; and when a porter cameto the door, and forced his way by the Marches, to ask with anxiousservility if she, were the Baroness von-----, she bade the man get them. A 'traeger', and then come back for her. She waved them a complacentadieu before they mixed with the crowd and lost sight of her. 

"Well, my dear, " said March, addressing the snobbishness in his wifewhich he knew to be so wholly impersonal, "you've mingled with onehighhote, anyway. I must say she didn't look it, any more than the Dukeand Duchess of Orleans, and yet she's only a baroness. Think of our beingthree hours in the same compartment, and she doing all she could toimpress us and our getting no good of it! I hoped you were feeling herquality, so that we should have it in the family, anyway, and always knowwhat it was like. But so far, the highhotes have all been terriblydisappointing. "

He teased on as they followed the traeger with their baggage out of thestation; and in the omnibus on the way to their hotel, he recurred to theloss they had suffered in the baroness's failure to dramatize hernobility effectually. "After all, perhaps she was as much disappointed inus. I don't suppose we looked any more like democrats than she lookedlike an aristocrat. "

"But there's a great difference, " Mrs. March returned at last. "It isn'tat all a parallel case. We were not real democrats, and she was a realaristocrat. "

"To be sure. There is that way of looking at it. That's rather novel; Iwish I had thought of that myself. She was certainly more to blame thanwe were. "

LII. 

The square in front of the station was planted with flag-poles wreathedin evergreens; a triumphal arch was nearly finished, and a colossalallegory in imitation bronze was well on the way to completion, in honorof the majesties who were coming for the manoeuvres. The streets whichthe omnibus passed through to the Swan Inn were draped with the imperialGerman and the royal Bavarian colors; and the standards of the visitingnationalities decked the fronts of the houses where their militaryattaches were lodged; but the Marches failed to see our own banner, andwere spared for the moment the ignominy of finding it over an apothecaryshop in a retired avenue. The sun had come out, the sky overhead was of asmiling blue; and they felt the gala-day glow and thrill in the depths oftheir inextinguishable youth. 

The Swan Inn sits on one of the long quays bordering the Main, and itswindows look down upon the bridges and shipping of the river; but thetraveller reaches it by a door in the rear, through an archway into aback street, where an odor dating back to the foundation of the city iswaiting to welcome him. 

The landlord was there, too, and he greeted the Marches so cordially thatthey fully partook his grief in being able to offer them rooms on thefront of the house for two nights only. They reconciled themselves to thenecessity of then turning out for the staff of the King of Saxony, themore readily because they knew that there was no hope of better things atany other hotel. 

The rooms which they could have for the time were charming, and they camedown to supper in a glazed gallery looking out on the river picturesquewith craft of all fashions: with row-boats, sail-boats, and littlesteamers, but mainly with long black barges built up into houses in themiddle, and defended each by a little nervous German dog. Long rafts oflogs weltered in the sunset red which painted the swift current, andmantled the immeasurable vineyards of the hills around like the color oftheir ripening grapes. Directly in face rose a castled steep, which keptthe ranging walls and the bastions and battlements of the time when sucha stronghold could have defended the city from foes without or fromtumult within. The arches of a stately bridge spanned the riversunsetward, and lifted a succession of colossal figures against thecrimson sky. 

"I guess we have been wasting our time, my dear, " said March, as they, turned from this beauty to the question of supper. "I wish we had alwaysbeen here!"

Their waiter had put them at a table in a division of the gallery beyondthat which they entered, where some groups of officers were noisilysupping. There was no one in their room but a man whose face wasindistinguishable against the light, and two young girls who glanced atthem with looks at once quelled and defiant, and then after a stare atthe officers in the gallery beyond, whispered together with suppressedgiggling. The man fed on without noticing them, except now and then toutter a growl that silenced the whispering and giggling for a moment. TheMarches, from no positive evidence of any sense, decided that they wereAmericans. 

"I don't know that I feel responsible for them as theirfellow-countryman; I should, once, " he said. 

"It isn't that. It's the worry of trying to make out why they are justwhat they are, " his wife returned. 

The girls drew the man's attention to them and he looked at them for thefirst time; then after a sort of hesitation he went on with his supper. They had only begun theirs when he rose with the two girls, whom Mrs. March now saw to be of the same size and dressed alike, and came heavilytoward them. 

"I thought you was in Carlsbad, " he said bluntly to March, with a nod atMrs. March. He added, with a twist of his head toward the two girls, "Mydaughters, " and then left them to her, while he talked on with herhusband. "Come to see this foolery, I suppose. I'm on my way to the woodsfor my after-cure; but I thought I might as well stop and give the girlsa chance; they got a week's vacation, anyway. " Stoller glanced at themwith a sort of troubled tenderness in his strong dull face. 

"Oh, yes. I understood they were at school here, " said March, and heheard one of them saying, in a sweet, high pipe to his wife:

"Ain't it just splendid? I ha'n't seen anything equal to it since theWorrld's Fairr. " She spoke with a strong contortion of the Western r, andher sister hastened to put in:

"I don't think it's to be compared with the Worrld's Fairr. But theseGerman girls, here, just think it's great. It just does me good to laffat 'em, about it. I like to tell 'em about the electric fountain and theCourrt of Lionorr when they get to talkin' about the illuminationsthey're goun' to have. You goun' out to the parade? You better engageyour carriage right away if you arre. The carrs'll be a perfect jam. Father's engaged ourrs; he had to pay sixty marrks forr it. "

They chattered on without shyness and on as easy terms with a woman ofthree times their years as if she had been a girl of their own age; theywillingly took the whole talk to themselves, and had left her quiteoutside of it before Stoller turned to her. 

"I been telling Mr. March here that you better both come to the paradewith us. I guess my twospanner will hold five; or if it won't, we'll makeit. I don't believe there's a carriage left in Wurzburg; and if you go inthe cars, you'll have to walk three or four miles before you get to theparade-ground. You think it over, " he said to March. "Nobody else isgoing to have the places, anyway, and you can say yes at the last minutejust as well as now. "

He moved off with his girls, who looked over their shoulders at theofficers as they passed on through the adjoining room. 

"My dear!" cried Mrs. March. "Didn't you suppose he classed us withBurnamy in that business? Why should he be polite to us?"

"Perhaps he wants you to chaperon his daughters. He's probably heard ofyour performance at the Kurhaus ball. But he knows that I thought Burnamyin the wrong. This may be Stoller's way of wiping out an obligation. Wouldn't you like to go with him?"

"The mere thought of his being in the same town is prostrating. I'd farrather he hated us; then he would avoid us. "

"Well, he doesn't own the town, and if it comes to the worst, perhaps wecan avoid him. Let us go out, anyway, and see if we can't. "

"No, no; I'm too tired; but you go. And get all the maps and guides youcan; there's so very little in Baedeker, and almost nothing in that greathulking Bradshaw of yours; and I'm sure there must be the mostinteresting history of Wurzburg. Isn't it strange that we haven't theslightest association with the name?"

"I've been rummaging in my mind, and I've got hold of an association atlast, " said March. "It's beer; a sign in a Sixth Avenue saloon windowWurzburger Hof-Brau. "

"No matter if it is beer. Find some sketch of the history, and we'll tryto get away from the Stollers in it. I pitied those wild girls, too. Whatcrazy images of the world must fill their empty minds! How their ignorantthoughts must go whirling out into the unknown! I don't envy theirfather. Do hurry back! I shall be thinking about them every instant tillyou come. "

She said this, but in their own rooms it was so soothing to sit lookingthrough the long twilight at the lovely landscape that the sort of bruisegiven by their encounter with the Stollers had left her consciousnessbefore March returned. She made him admire first the convent church on ahill further up the river which exactly balanced the fortress in front ofthem, and then she seized upon the little books he had brought, and sethim to exploring the labyrinths of their German, with a mountingexultation in his discoveries. There was a general guide to the city, anda special guide, with plans and personal details of the approachingmanoeuvres and the princes who were to figure in them; and there was asketch of the local history: a kind of thing that the Germans know how towrite particularly, well, with little gleams of pleasant humor blinkingthrough it. For the study of this, Mrs. March realized, more and morepassionately, that they were in the very most central and convenientpoint, for the history of Wurzburg might be said to have begun with herprince-bishops, whose rule had begun in the twelfth century, and who hadbuilt, on a forgotten Roman work, the fortress of the Marienburg on thatvineyarded hill over against the Swan Inn. There had of course beenhistory before that, but 'nothing so clear, nothing so peculiarly swell, nothing that so united the glory of this world and the next as that ofthe prince-bishops. They had made the Marienburg their home, and kept itagainst foreign and domestic foes for five hundred years. Shut within itswell-armed walls they had awed the often-turbulent city across the Main;they had held it against the embattled farmers in the Peasants' War, andhad splendidly lost it to Gustavus Adolphus, and then got it back againand held it till Napoleon took it from them. He gave it with their flockto the Bavarians, who in turn briefly yielded it to the Prussians in1866, and were now in apparently final possession of it. 

Before the prince-bishops, Charlemagne and Barbarossa had come and gone, and since the prince-bishops there had been visiting thrones and kingdomsenough in the ancient city, which was soon to be illustrated by thepresence of imperial Germany, royal, Wirtemberg and Saxony, grand-ducalBaden and Weimar, and a surfeit of all the minor potentates among thosewho speak the beautiful language of the Ja. 

But none of these could dislodge the prince-bishops from that supremeplace which they had at once taken in Mrs. March's fancy. The potentateswere all going to be housed in the vast palace which the prince-bishopshad built themselves in Wurzburg as soon as they found it safe to comedown from their stronghold of Marienburg, and begin to adorn their city, and to confirm it in its intense fidelity to the Church. Tiepolo had comeup out of Italy to fresco their palace, where he wrought year after year, in that worldly taste which has somehow come to express the mostsovereign moment of ecclesiasticism. It prevailed so universally inWurzburg that it left her with the name of the Rococo City, intrenched ina period of time equally remote from early Christianity and modernProtestantism. Out of her sixty thousand souls, only ten thousand are nowof the reformed religion, and these bear about the same relation to theCatholic spirit of the place that the Gothic architecture bears to thebaroque. 

As long as the prince-bishops lasted the Wurzburgers got on very wellwith but one newspaper, and perhaps the smallest amount of merrymakingknown outside of the colony of Massachusetts Bay at the same epoch. Theprince-bishops had their finger in everybody's pie, and they portionedout the cakes and ale, which were made according to formulas of theirown. The distractions were all of a religious character; churches, convents, monasteries, abounded; ecclesiastical processions andsolemnities were the spectacles that edified if they did not amuse thedevout population. 

It seemed to March an ironical outcome of all this spiritual severitythat one of the greatest modern scientific discoveries should have beenmade in Wurzburg, and that the Roentgen rays should now be giving hername a splendor destined to eclipse the glories of her past. 

Mrs. March could not allow that they would do so; or at least that thename of Roentgen would ever lend more lustre to his city than that ofLongfellow's Walther von der Vogelweide. She was no less surprised thanpleased to realize that this friend of the birds was a Wurzburger, andshe said that their first pilgrimage in the morning should be to thechurch where he lies buried. 

LIII. 

March went down to breakfast not quite so early as his wife had planned, and left her to have her coffee in her room. He got a pleasant table inthe gallery overlooking the river, and he decided that the landscape, though it now seemed to be rather too much studied from a drop-certain, had certainly lost nothing of its charm in the clear morning light. Thewaiter brought his breakfast, and after a little delay came back with acard which he insisted was for March. It was not till he put on hisglasses and read the name of Mr. R. M. Kenby that he was able at all toagree with the waiter, who stood passive at his elbow. 

"Well, " he said, "why wasn't this card sent up last night?"

The waiter explained that the gentleman had just, given him his card, after asking March's nationality, and was then breakfasting in the nextroom. March caught up his napkin and ran round the partition wall, andKenby rose with his napkin and hurried to meet him. 

"I thought it must be you, " he called out, joyfully, as they struck theirextended hands together, "but so many people look alike, nowadays, that Idon't trust my eyes any more. "

Kenby said he had spent the time since they last met partly in Leipsicand partly in Gotha, where he had amused himself in rubbing up his rustyGerman. As soon as he realized that Wurzburg was so near he had slippeddown from Gotha for a glimpse of the manoeuvres. He added that hesupposed March was there to see them, and he asked with a quiteunembarrassed smile if they had met Mr. Adding in Carlsbad, and withoutheeding March's answer, he laughed and added: "Of course, I know she musthave told Mrs. March all about it. "

March could not deny this; he laughed, too; though in his wife's absencehe felt bound to forbid himself anything more explicit. 

"I don't give it up, you know, " Kenby went on, with perfect ease. "I'mnot a young fellow, if you call thirty-nine old. "

"At my age I don't, " March put in, and they roared together, in men'ssecurity from the encroachments of time. 

"But she happens to be the only woman I've ever really wanted to marry, for more than a few days at a stretch. You know how it is with us. "

"Oh, yes, I know, " said March, and they shouted again. 

"We're in love, and we're out of love, twenty times. But this isn't amere fancy; it's a conviction. And there's no reason why she shouldn'tmarry me. "

March smiled gravely, and his smile was not lost upon Kenby. "You meanthe boy, " he said. "Well, I like Rose, " and now March really felt sweptfrom his feet. "She doesn't deny that she likes me, but she seems tothink that her marrying again will take her from him; the fact is, itwill only give me to him. As for devoting her whole life to him, shecouldn't do a worse thing for him. What the boy needs is a man's care, and a man's will--Good heavens! You don't think I could ever be unkind tothe little soul?" Kenby threw himself forward over the table. 

"My dear fellow!" March protested. 

"I'd rather cut off my right hand!" Kenby pursued, excitedly, and then hesaid, with a humorous drop: "The fact is, I don't believe I should wanther so much if I couldn't have Rose too. I want to have them both. Sofar, I've only got no for an answer; but I'm not going to keep it. I hada letter from Rose at Carlsbad, the other day; and--"

The waiter came forward with a folded scrap of paper on his salver, whichMarch knew must be from his wife. "What is keeping you so?" she wrote. "Iam all ready. " "It's from Mrs. March, " he explained to Kenby. "I am goingout with her on some errands. I'm awfully glad to see you again. We musttalk it all over, and you must--you mustn't--Mrs. March will want to seeyou later--I--Are you in the hotel?"

"Oh yes. I'll see you at the one-o'clock table d'hote, I suppose. "

March went away with his head whirling in the question whether he shouldtell his wife at once of Kenby's presence, or leave her free for thepleasures of Wurzburg, till he could shape the fact into some safe andacceptable form. She met him at the door with her guide-books, wraps andumbrellas, and would hardly give him time to get on his hat and coat. 

"Now, I want you to avoid the Stollers as far as you can see them. Thisis to be a real wedding-journey day, with no extraneous acquaintance tobother; the more strangers the better. Wurzburg is richer than anything Iimagined. I've looked it all up; I've got the plan of the city, so thatwe can easily find the way. We'll walk first, and take carriages wheneverwe get tired. We'll go to the cathedral at once; I want a good gulp ofrococo to begin with; there wasn't half enough of it at Ansbach. Isn't itstrange how we've come round to it?"

She referred to that passion for the Gothic which they had obedientlyimbibed from Ruskin in the days of their early Italian travel andcourtship, when all the English-speaking world bowed down to him indevout aversion from the renaissance, and pious abhorrence of the rococo. 

"What biddable little things we were!" she went on, while March wasstruggling to keep Kenby in the background of his consciousness. "Therococo must have always had a sneaking charm for us, when we were pinningour faith to pointed arches; and yet I suppose we were perfectly sincere. Oh, look at that divinely ridiculous Madonna!" They were now making theirway out of the crooked footway behind their hotel toward the streetleading to the cathedral, and she pointed to the Blessed Virgin over thedoor of some religious house, her drapery billowing about her feet; herbody twisting to show the sculptor's mastery of anatomy, and the haloheld on her tossing head with the help of stout gilt rays. In fact, theVirgin's whole figure was gilded, and so was that of the child in herarms. "Isn't she delightful?"

"I see what you mean, " said March, with a dubious glance at the statue, "but I'm not sure, now, that I wouldn't like something quieter in myMadonnas. "

The thoroughfare which they emerged upon, with the cathedral ending theprospective, was full of the holiday so near at hand. The narrowsidewalks were thronged with people, both soldiers and civilians, and upthe middle of the street detachments of military came and went, haltingthe little horse-cars and the huge beer-wagons which otherwise seemed tohave the sole right to the streets of Wurzburg; they came jingling orthundering out of the aide streets and hurled themselves round thecorners reckless of the passers, who escaped alive by flatteningthemselves like posters against the house walls. There were peasants, menand women, in the costume which the unbroken course of their country lifehad kept as quaint as it was a hundred years before; there were citizensin the misfits of the latest German fashions; there were soldiers of allarms in their vivid uniforms, and from time to time there were prettyyoung girls in white dresses with low necks, and bare arms gloved to theelbows, who were following a holiday custom of the place in going aboutthe streets in ball costume. The shop windows were filled with portraitsof the Emperor and the Empress, and the Prince-Regent and the ladies ofhis family; the German and Bavarian colors draped the facades of thehouses and festooned the fantastic Madonnas posing above so many portals. The modern patriotism included the ancient piety without disturbing it;the rococo city remained ecclesiastical through its new imperialism, andkept the stamp given it by the long rule of the prince-bishops under thesovereignty of its King and the suzerainty of its Kaiser. 

The Marches escaped from the present, when they entered the cathedral, aswholly as if they had taken hold of the horns of the altar, though theywere far from literally doing this in an interior so grandiose. Therearea few rococo churches in Italy, and perhaps more in Spain, whichapproach the perfection achieved by the Wurzburg cathedral in the baroquestyle. For once one sees what that style can do in architecture andsculpture, and whatever one may say of the details, one cannot deny thatthere is a prodigiously effective keeping in it all. This interior cametogether, as the decorators say, with a harmony that the travellers hadfelt nowhere in their earlier experience of the rococo. It was, unimpeachably perfect in its way, "Just, " March murmured to his wife, "asthe social and political and scientific scheme of the eighteenth centurywas perfected in certain times and places. But the odd thing is to findthe apotheosis of the rococo away up here in Germany. I wonder how muchthe prince-bishops really liked it. But they had become rococo, too! Lookat that row of their statues on both sides of the nave! What magnificentswell! How they abash this poor plain Christ, here; he would like to getbehind the pillar; he knows that he could never lend himself to thebaroque style. It expresses the eighteenth century, though. But how youlong for some little hint of the thirteenth, or even the nineteenth. "

"I don't, " she whispered back. "I'm perfectly wild with Wurzburg. I liketo have a thing go as far as it can. At Nuremberg I wanted all the GothicI could get, and in Wurzburg I want all the baroque I can get. I amconsistent. "

She kept on praising herself to his disadvantage, as women do, all theway to the Neumunster Church, where they were going to revere the tomb ofWalther von der Vogelweide, not so much for his own sake as forLongfellow's. The older poet lies buried within, but his monument isoutside the church, perhaps for the greater convenience of the sparrows, which now represent the birds he loved. The cenotaph is surmounted by abroad vase, and around this are thickly perched the effigies of theMeistersinger's feathered friends, from whom the canons of the church, asMrs. March read aloud from her Baedeker, long ago directed his bequest tothemselves. In revenge for their lawless greed the defraudedbeneficiaries choose to burlesque the affair by looking like thefour-and-twenty blackbirds when the pie was opened. 

She consented to go for a moment to the Gothic Marienkapelle with herhusband in the revival of his mediaeval taste, and she was rewardedamidst its thirteenth-century sincerity by his recantation. "You areright! Baroque is the thing for Wurzburg; one can't enjoy Gothic here anymore than one could enjoy baroque in Nuremberg. "

Reconciled in the rococo, they now called a carriage, and went to visitthe palace of the prince-bishops who had so well known how to make theheavenly take the image and superscription of the worldly; and they werejointly indignant to find it shut against the public in preparation forthe imperialities and royalties coming to occupy it. They were in timefor the noon guard-mounting, however, and Mrs. March said that the waythe retiring squad kicked their legs out in the high martial step of theGerman soldiers was a perfect expression of the insolent militarism oftheir empire, and was of itself enough to make one thank Heaven that onewas an American and a republican. She softened a little toward theirsystem when it proved that the garden of the palace was still open, andyet more when she sank down upon a bench between two marble groupsrepresenting the Rape of Proserpine and the Rape of Europa. They stoodeach in a gravelled plot, thickly overrun by a growth of ivy, and thevine climbed the white naked limbs of the nymphs, who were present on apretence of gathering flowers, but really to pose at the spectators, andclad them to the waist and shoulders with an effect of modesty nevermeant by the sculptor, but not displeasing. There was an old fountainnear, its stone rim and centre of rock-work green with immemorial mould, and its basin quivering between its water-plants under the soft fall ofspray. At a waft of fitful breeze some leaves of early autumn fell fromthe trees overhead upon the elderly pair where they sat, and a littlecompany of sparrows came and hopped about their feet. Though the squarewithout was so all astir with festive expectation, there were few peoplein the garden; three or four peasant women in densely fluted white skirtsand red aprons and shawls wandered by and stared at the Europa and at theProserpine. 

It was a precious moment in which the charm of the city's past seemed toculminate, and they were loath to break it by speech. 

"Why didn't we have something like all this on our first weddingjourney?" she sighed at last. "To think of our battening from Boston toNiagara and back! And how hard we tried to make something of Rochesterand Buffalo, of Montreal and Quebec!"

"Niagara wasn't so bad, " he said, "and I will never go back on Quebec. "

"Ah, but if we could have had Hamburg and Leipsic, and Carlsbad andNuremberg, and Ansbach and Wurzburg! Perhaps this is meant as acompensation for our lost youth. But I can't enjoy it as I could when Iwas young. It's wasted on my sere and yellow leaf. I wish Burnamy andMiss Triscoe were here; I should like to try this garden on them. "

"They wouldn't care for it, " he replied, and upon a daring impulse headded, "Kenby and Mrs. Adding might. " If she took this suggestion in goodpart, he could tell her that Kenby was in Wurzburg. 

"Don't speak of them! They're in just that besotted early middle-age whenlife has settled into a self-satisfied present, with no past and nofuture; the most philistine, the most bourgeois, moment of existence. Better be elderly at once, as far as appreciation of all this goes. " Sherose and put her hand on his arm, and pushed him away in the impulsivefashion of her youth, across alleys of old trees toward a balustradedterrace in the background which had tempted her. 

"It isn't so bad, being elderly, " he said. "By that time we haveaccumulated enough past to sit down and really enjoy its associations. Wehave got all sorts of perspectives and points of view. We know where weare at. "

"I don't mind being elderly. The world's just as amusing as ever, andlots of disagreeable things have dropped out. It's the getting more thanelderly; it's the getting old; and then--"

They shrank a little closer together, and walked on in silence till hesaid, "Perhaps there's something else, something better--somewhere. "

They had reached the balustraded terrace, and were pausing for pleasurein the garden tops below, with the flowery spaces, and the statuedfountains all coming together. She put her hand on one of the fat littleurchin-groups on the stone coping. "I don't want cherubs, when I can havethese putti. And those old prince-bishops didn't, either!"

"I don't suppose they kept a New England conscience, " he said, with avague smile. "It would be difficult in the presence of the rococo. "

They left the garden through the beautiful gate which the old courtironsmith Oegg hammered out in lovely forms of leaves and flowers, andshaped laterally upward, as lightly as if with a waft of his hand, ingracious Louis Quinze curves; and they looked back at it in the kind ofdespair which any perfection inspires. They said how feminine it was, howexotic, how expressive of a luxurious ideal of life which art hadpurified and left eternally charming. They remembered their Ruskinianyouth, and the confidence with which they would once have condemned it;and they had a sense of recreance in now admiring it; but they certainlyadmired it, and it remained for them the supreme expression of thattime-soul, mundane, courtly, aristocratic, flattering, which onceinfluenced the art of the whole world, and which had here so curiouslyfound its apotheosis in a city remote from its native place and under arule sacerdotally vowed to austerity. The vast superb palace of theprince bishops, which was now to house a whole troop of sovereigns, imperial, royal, grand ducal and ducal, swelled aloft in superbamplitude; but it did not realize their historic pride so effectively asthis exquisite work of the court ironsmith. It related itself in itsaerial beauty to that of the Tiepolo frescoes which the travellers knewwere swimming and soaring on the ceilings within, and from which itseemed to accent their exclusion with a delicate irony, March said. "Oriron-mongery, " he corrected himself upon reflection. 

LIV. 

He had forgotten Kenby in these aesthetic interests, but he rememberedhim again when he called a carriage, and ordered it driven to theirhotel. It was the hour of the German mid-day table d'hote, and they wouldbe sure to meet him there. The question now was how March should own hispresence in time to prevent his wife from showing her ignorance of it toKenby himself, and he was still turning the question hopelessly over inhis mind when the sight of the hotel seemed to remind her of a fact whichshe announced. 

"Now, my dear, I am tired to death, and I am not going to sit through along table d'hote. I want you to send me up a simple beefsteak and a cupof tea to our rooms; and I don't want you to come near for hours; becauseI intend to take a whole afternoon nap. You can keep all the maps andplans, and guides, and you had better go and see what the Volksfest islike; it will give you some notion of the part the people are reallytaking in all this official celebration, and you know I don't care. Don'tcome up after dinner to see how I am getting along; I shall get along;and if you should happen to wake me after I had dropped off--"

Kenby had seen them arrive from where he sat at the reading-room window, waiting for the dinner hour, and had meant to rush out and greet Mrs. March as they passed up the corridor. But she looked so tired that he haddecided to spare her till she came down to dinner; and as he sat withMarch at their soup, he asked if she were not well. 

March explained, and he provisionally invented some regrets from her thatshe should not see Kenby till supper. 

Kenby ordered a bottle of one of the famous Wurzburg wines for theirmutual consolation in her absence, and in the friendliness which itspromoted they agreed to spend the afternoon together. No man is soinveterate a husband as not to take kindly an occasional release tobachelor companionship, and before the dinner was over they agreed thatthey would go to the Volksfest, and get some notion of the popular lifeand amusements of Wurzburg, which was one of the few places where Kenbyhad never been before; and they agreed that they would walk. 

Their way was partly up the quay of the Main, past a barrack full ofsoldiers. They met detachments of soldiers everywhere, infantry, artillery, cavalry. 

"This is going to be a great show, " Kenby said, meaning the manoeuvres, and he added, as if now he had kept away from the subject long enough andhad a right to recur to it, at least indirectly, "I should like to haveRose see it, and get his impressions. "

"I've an idea he wouldn't approve of it. His mother says his mind isturning more and more to philanthropy. "

Kenby could not forego such a chance to speak of Mrs. Adding. "It's oneof the prettiest things to see how she understands Rose. It's charming tosee them together. She wouldn't have half the attraction without him. "

"Oh, yes, " March assented. He had often wondered how a man wishing tomarry a widow managed with the idea of her children by another marriage;but if Kenby was honest; it was much simpler than he had supposed. Hecould not say this to him, however, and in a certain embarrassment he hadwith the conjecture in his presence he attempted a diversion. "We'repromised something at the Volksfest which will be a great novelty to usas Americans. Our driver told us this morning that one of the housesthere was built entirely of wood. "

When they reached the grounds of the Volksfest, this civil feature of thegreat military event at hand, which the Marches had found largely setforth in the programme of the parade, did not fully keep the glowingpromises made for it; in fact it could not easily have done so. It was ina pleasant neighborhood of new villas such as form the modern quarter ofevery German city, and the Volksfest was even more unfinished than itsenvironment. It was not yet enclosed by the fence which was to hide itswonders from the non-paying public, but March and Kenby went in throughan archway where the gate-money was as effectually collected from them asif they were barred every other entrance. 

The wooden building was easily distinguishable from the other edificesbecause these were tents and booths still less substantial. They did notmake out its function, but of the others four sheltered merry-go-rounds, four were beer-gardens, four were restaurants, and the rest were devotedto amusements of the usual country-fair type. Apparently they had littleattraction for country people. The Americans met few peasants in thegrounds, and neither at the Edison kinematograph, where they refreshedtheir patriotism with some scenes of their native life, nor at the littletheatre where they saw the sports of the arena revived, in the wrestle ofa woman with a bear, did any of the people except tradesmen and artisansseem to be taking part in the festival expression of the popularpleasure. 

The woman, who finally threw the bear, whether by slight, or by mainstrength, or by a previous understanding with him, was a slendercreature, pathetically small and not altogether plain; and March as theywalked away lapsed into a pensive muse upon her strange employ. Hewondered how she came to take it up, and whether she began with the bearwhen they were both very young, and she could easily throw him. 

"Well, women have a great deal more strength than we suppose, " Kenbybegan with a philosophical air that gave March the hope of some rationalconversation. Then his eye glazed with a far-off look, and a doting smilecame into his face. "When we went through the Dresden gallery together, Rose and I were perfectly used up at the end of an hour, but his motherkept on as long as there was anything to see, and came away as fresh as apeach. "

Then March saw that it was useless to expect anything different from him, and he let him talk on about Mrs. Adding all the rest of the way back tothe hotel. Kenby seemed only to have begun when they reached the door, and wanted to continue the subject in the reading-room. 

March pleaded his wish to find how his wife had got through theafternoon, and he escaped to her. He would have told her now that Kenbywas in the house, but he was really so sick of the fact himself that hecould not speak of it at once, and he let her go on celebrating all shehad seen from the window since she had waked from her long nap. She saidshe could never be glad enough that they had come just at that time. Soldiers had been going by the whole afternoon, and that made it sofeudal. 

"Yes, " he assented. "But aren't you coming up to the station with me tosee the Prince-Regent arrive? He's due at seven, you know. "

"I declare I had forgotten all about it. No, I'm not equal to it. Youmust go; you can tell me everything; be sure to notice how the PrincessMaria looks; the last of the Stuarts, you know; and some people considerher the rightful Queen of England; and I'll have the supper ordered, andwe can go down as soon as you've got back. "

LV. 

March felt rather shabby stealing away without Kenby; but he had reallyhad as much of Mrs. Adding as he could stand, for one day, and he waseven beginning to get sick of Rose. Besides, he had not sent back a linefor 'Every Other Week' yet, and he had made up his mind to write a sketchof the manoeuvres. To this end he wished to receive an impression of thePrince-Regent's arrival which should not be blurred or clouded by otherinterests. His wife knew the kind of thing he liked to see, and wouldhave helped him out with his observations, but Kenby would have got inthe way, and would have clogged the movement of his fancy in assigningthe facts to the parts he would like them to play in the sketch. 

At least he made some such excuses to himself as he hurried along towardthe Kaiserstrasse. The draught of universal interest in that directionhad left the other streets almost deserted, but as he approached thethoroughfare he found all the ways blocked, and the horse-cars, ordinarily so furiously headlong, arrested by the multiple ranks ofspectators on the sidewalks. The avenue leading from the railway stationto the palace was decorated with flags and garlands, and planted with thestems of young firs and birches. The doorways were crowded, and thewindows dense with eager faces peering out of the draped bunting. Thecarriageway was kept clear by mild policemen who now and then allowed oneof the crowd to cross it. 

The crowd was made up mostly of women and boys, and when March joinedthem, they had already been waiting an hour for the sight of the princeswho were to bless them with a vision of the faery race which kings alwaysare to common men. He thought the people looked dull, and therefore ableto bear the strain of expectation with patience better than a livelierrace. They relieved it by no attempt at joking; here and there a dimsmile dawned on a weary face, but it seemed an effect of amiabilityrather than humor. There was so little of this, or else it was so wellbridled by the solemnity of the occasion, that not a man, woman, or childlaughed when a bareheaded maid-servant broke through the lines and randown between them with a life-size plaster bust of the Emperor William inher arms: she carried it like an overgrown infant, and in alarm at herconspicuous part she cast frightened looks from side to side withoutarousing any sort of notice. Undeterred by her failure, a young dog, parted from his owner, and seeking him in the crowd, pursued his searchin a wild flight down the guarded roadway with an air of anxiety that inAmerica would have won him thunders of applause, and all sorts of kindlyencouragements to greater speed. But this German crowd witnessed hisprogress apparently without interest, and without a sign of pleasure. They were there to see the Prince-Regent arrive, and they did not sufferthemselves to be distracted by any preliminary excitement. Suddenly theindefinable emotion which expresses the fulfilment of expectation in awaiting crowd passed through the multitude, and before he realized itMarch was looking into the friendly gray-bearded face of thePrince-Regent, for the moment that his carriage allowed in passing. Thiscame first preceded by four outriders, and followed by other simpleequipages of Bavarian blue, full of highnesses of all grades. Beside theRegent sat his daughter-in-law, the Princess Maria, her silvered hairframing a face as plain and good as the Regent's, if not so intelligent. 

He, in virtue of having been born in Wurzburg, is officially supposed tobe specially beloved by his fellow townsmen; and they now testified theiraffection as he whirled through their ranks, bowing right and left, bywhat passes in Germany for a cheer. It is the word Hoch, groaned forthfrom abdominal depths, and dismally prolonged in a hollow roar like thatwhich the mob makes behind the scenes at the theatre before bursting invisible tumult on the stage. Then the crowd dispersed, and March cameaway wondering why such a kindly-looking Prince-Regent should not havegiven them a little longer sight of himself; after they had waited sopatiently for hours to see him. But doubtless in those countries, heconcluded, the art of keeping the sovereign precious by suffering him tobe rarely and briefly seen is wisely studied. 

On his way home he resolved to confess Kenby's presence; and he did so assoon as he sat down to supper with his wife. "I ought to have told youthe first thing after breakfast. But when I found you in that mood ofhaving the place all to ourselves, I put it off. "

"You took terrible chances, my dear, " she said, gravely. 

"And I have been terribly punished. You've no idea how much Kenby hastalked to me about Mrs. Adding!"

She broke out laughing. "Well, perhaps you've suffered enough. But youcan see now, can't you, that it would have been awful if I had met him, and let out that I didn't know he was here?"

"Terrible. But if I had told, it would have spoiled the whole morning foryou; you couldn't have thought of anything else. "

"Oh, I don't know, " she said, airily. "What should you think if I toldyou I had known he was here ever since last night?" She went on indelight at the start he gave. "I saw him come into the hotel while youwere gone for the guide-books, and I determined to keep it from you aslong as I could; I knew it would worry you. We've both been very nice;and I forgive you, " she hurried on, "because I've really got something totell you. "

"Don't tell me that Burnamy is here!"

"Don't jump to conclusions! No, Burnamy isn't here, poor fellow! Anddon't suppose that I'm guilty of concealment because I haven't told youbefore. I was just thinking whether I wouldn't spare you till morning, but now I shall let you take the brunt of it. Mrs. Adding and Rose arehere. " She gave the fact time to sink in, and then she added, "And MissTriscoe and her father are here. "

"What is the matter with Major Eltwin and his wife being here, too? Arethey in our hotel?"

"No, they are not. They came to look for rooms while you were off waitingfor the Prince-Regent, and I saw them. They intended to go to Frankfortfor the manoeuvres, but they heard that there was not even standing-roomthere, and so the general telegraphed to the Spanischer Hof, and they allcame here. As it is, he will have to room with Rose, and Agatha and Mrs. Adding will room together. I didn't think Agatha was looking very well;she looked unhappy; I don't believe she's heard, from Burnamy yet; Ihadn't a chance to ask her. And there's something else that I'm afraidwill fairly make you sick. "

"Oh, no; go on. I don't think anything can do that, after an afternoon ofKenby's confidences. "

"It's worse than Kenby, " she said with a sigh. "You know I told you atCarlsbad I thought that ridiculous old thing was making up to Mrs. Adding. "

"Kenby? Why of co--"

"Don't be stupid, my dear! No, not Kenby: General Triscoe. I wish youcould have been here to see him paying her all sort; of silly attentions, and hear him making her compliments. "

"Thank you. I think I'm just as well without it. Did she pay him sillyattentions and compliments, too?"

"That's the only thing that can make me forgive her for his wanting her. She was keeping him at arm's-length the whole time, and she was doing itso as not to make him contemptible before his daughter. "

"It must have been hard. And Rose?"

"Rose didn't seem very well. He looks thin and pale; but he's sweeterthan ever. She's certainly commoner clay than Rose. No, I won't say that!It's really nothing but General Triscoe's being an old goose about herthat makes her seem so, and it isn't fair. "

March went down to his coffee in the morning with the delicate duty oftelling Kenby that Mrs. Adding was in town. Kenby seemed to think itquite natural she should wish to see the manoeuvres, and not at allstrange that she should come to them with General Triscoe and hisdaughter. He asked if March would not go with him to call upon her afterbreakfast, and as this was in the line of his own instructions from Mrs. March, he went. 

They found Mrs. Adding with the Triscoes, and March saw nothing that wasnot merely friendly, or at the most fatherly, in the general's behaviortoward her. If Mrs. Adding or Miss Triscoe saw more, they hid it in aguise of sisterly affection for each other. At the most the generalshowed a gayety which one would not have expected of him under anyconditions, and which the fact that he and Rose had kept each other awakea good deal the night before seemed so little adapted to call out. Hejoked with Rose about their room and their beds, and put on a comraderywith him that was not a perfect fit, and that suffered by contrast withthe pleasure of the boy and Kenby in meeting. There was a certainquestion in the attitude of Mrs. Adding till March helped Kenby toaccount for his presence; then she relaxed in an effect of security sotacit that words overstate it, and began to make fun of Rose. 

March could not find that Miss Triscoe looked unhappy, as his wife hadsaid; he thought simply that she had grown plainer; but when he reportedthis, she lost her patience with him. In a girl, she said, plainness wasunhappiness; and she wished to know when he would ever learn to look aninch below the surface: She was sure that Agatha Triscoe had not heardfrom Burnamy since the Emperor's birthday; that she was at swords'-pointswith her father, and so desperate that she did not care what became ofher. 

He had left Kenby with the others, and now, after his wife had talkedherself tired of them all, he proposed going out again to look about thecity, where there was nothing for the moment to remind them of thepresence of their friends or even of their existence. She answered thatshe was worrying about all those people, and trying to work out theirproblem for them. He asked why she did not let them work it outthemselves as they would have to do, after all her worry, and she saidthat where her sympathy had been excited she could not stop worrying, whether it did any good or not, and she could not respect any one whocould drop things so completely out of his mind as he could; she hadnever been able to respect that in him. 

"I know, my dear, " he assented. "But I don't think it's a question ofmoral responsibility; it's a question of mental structure, isn't it? Yourconsciousness isn't built in thought-tight compartments, and one emotiongoes all through it, and sinks you; but I simply close the doors and shutthe emotion in, and keep on. "

The fancy pleased him so much that he worked it out in all itsimplications, and could not, after their long experience of each other, realize that she was not enjoying the joke too, till she said she sawthat he merely wished to tease. Then, too late, he tried to share herworry; but she protested that she was not worrying at all; that she carednothing about those people: that she was nervous, she was tired; and shewished he would leave her, and go out alone. 

He found himself in the street again, and he perceived that he must bewalking fast when a voice called him by name, and asked him what hishurry was. The voice was Stoller's, who got into step with him andfollowed the first with a second question. 

"Made up your mind to go to the manoeuvres with me?"

His bluntness made it easy for March to answer: "I'm afraid my wifecouldn't stand the drive back and forth. "

"Come without her. "

"Thank you. It's very kind of you. I'm not certain that I shall go atall. If I do, I shall run out by train, and take my chances with thecrowd. "

Stoller insisted no further. He felt no offence at the refusal of hisoffer, or chose to show none. He said, with the same uncouth abruptnessas before: "Heard anything of that fellow since he left Carlsbad?"

"Burnamy?"

"Mm. "

"No. "

"Know where he is?"

"I don't in the least. "

Stoller let another silence elapse while they hurried on, before he said, "I got to thinking what he done afterwards. He wasn't bound to look outfor me; he might suppose I knew what I was about. "

March turned his face and stared in Stoller's, which he was letting hangforward as he stamped heavily on. Had the disaster proved less than hehad feared, and did he still want Burnamy's help in patching up thebroken pieces; or did he really wish to do Burnamy justice to his friend?

In any case March's duty was clear. "I think Burnamy was bound to lookout for you; Mr. Stoller, and I am glad to know that he saw it in thesame light. "

"I know he did, " said Stoker with a blaze as from a long-smoulderingfury, "and damn him, I'm not going to have it. I'm not going to, pleadthe baby act with him, or with any man. You tell him so, when you get thechance. You tell him I don't hold him accountable for anything I made himdo. That ain't business; I don't want him around me, any more; but if hewants to go back to the paper he can have his place. You tell him I standby what I done; and it's all right between him and me. I hain't doneanything about it, the way I wanted him to help me to; I've let it lay, and I'm a-going to. I guess it ain't going to do me any harm, after all;our people hain't got very long memories; but if it is, let it. You tellhim it's all right. "

"I don't know where he is, Mr. Stoller, and I don't know that I care tobe the bearer of your message, " said March. 

"Why not?"

"Why, for one thing, I don't agree with you that it's all right. Yourchoosing to stand by the consequences of Burnamy's wrong doesn't undo it. As I understand, you don't pardon it--"

Stoller gulped and did not answer at once. Then he said, "I stand by whatI done. I'm not going to let him say I turned him down for doing what Itold him to, because I hadn't the sense to know what I was about. "

"Ah, I don't think it's a thing he'll like to speak of in any case, " saidMarch. 

Stoller left him, at the corner they had reached, as abruptly as he hadjoined him, and March hurried back to his wife, and told her what hadjust passed between him and Stoller. 

She broke out, "Well, I am surprised at you, my dear! You have alwaysaccused me of suspecting people, and attributing bad motives; and hereyou've refused even to give the poor man the benefit of the doubt. Hemerely wanted to save his savage pride with you, and that's all he wantsto do with Burnamy. How could it hurt the poor boy to know that Stollerdoesn't blame him? Why should you refuse to give his message to Burnamy?I don't want you to ridicule me for my conscience any more, Basil; you'retwice as bad as I ever was. Don't you think that a person can everexpiate an offence? I've often heard you say that if any one owned hisfault, he put it from him, and it was the same as if it hadn't been; andhasn't Burnamy owned up over and over again? I'm astonished at you, dearest. "

March was in fact somewhat astonished at himself in the light of herreasoning; but she went on with some sophistries that restored him to hisself-righteousness. 

"I suppose you think he has interfered with Stoller's political ambition, and injured him in that way. Well, what if he has? Would it be a goodthing to have a man like that succeed in politics? You're always sayingthat the low character of our politicians is the ruin of the country; andI'm sure, " she added, with a prodigious leap over all the sequences, "that Mr. Stoller is acting nobly; and it's your duty to help him relieveBurnamy's mind. " At the laugh he broke into she hastened to say, "Or ifyou won't, I hope you'll not object to my doing so, for I shall, anyway!"

She rose as if she were going to begin at once, in spite of his laughing;and in fact she had already a plan for coming to Stoller's assistance bygetting at Burnamy through Miss Triscoe, whom she suspected of knowingwhere he was. There had been no chance for them to speak of him eitherthat morning or the evening before, and after a great deal of controversywith herself in her husband's presence she decided to wait till they camenaturally together the next morning for the walk to the Capuchin Churchon the hill beyond the river, which they had agreed to take. She couldnot keep from writing a note to Miss Triscoe begging her to be sure tocome, and hinting that she had something very important to speak of. 

She was not sure but she had been rather silly to do this, but when theymet the girl confessed that she had thought of giving up the walk, andmight not have come except for Mrs. March's note. She had come with Rose, and had left him below with March; Mrs. Adding was coming later withKenby and General Triscoe. 

Mrs. March lost no time in telling her the great news; and if she hadbeen in doubt before of the girl's feeling for Burnamy she was now innone. She had the pleasure of seeing her flush with hope, and then thepain which was also a pleasure, of seeing her blanch with dismay. 

"I don't know where he is, Mrs. March. I haven't heard a word from himsince that night in Carlsbad. I expected--I didn't know but you--"

Mrs. March shook her head. She treated the fact skillfully as somethingto be regretted simply because it would be such a relief to Burnamy toknow how Mr. Stoller now felt. Of course they could reach him somehow;you could always get letters to people in Europe, in the end; and, infact, it was altogether probable that he was that very instant inWurzburg; for if the New York-Paris Chronicle had wanted him to write upthe Wagner operas, it would certainly want him to write up themanoeuvres. She established his presence in Wurzburg by such anirrefragable chain of reasoning that, at a knock outside, she was justable to kelp back a scream, while she ran to open the door. It was notBurnamy, as in compliance with every nerve it ought to have been, but herhusband, who tried to justify his presence by saying that they were allwaiting for her and Miss Triscoe, and asked when they were coming. 

She frowned him silent, and then shut herself outside with him longenough to whisper, "Say she's got a headache, or anything you please; butdon't stop talking here with me, or I shall go wild. " She then shutherself in again, with the effect of holding him accountable for thewhole affair. 

LVI. 

General Triscoe could not keep his irritation, at hearing that hisdaughter was not coming, out of the excuses he made to Mrs. Adding; hesaid again and again that it must seem like a discourtesy to her. Shegayly disclaimed any such notion; she would not hear of putting off theirexcursion to another day; it had been raining just long enough to givethem a reasonable hope of a few hours' drought, and they might not haveanother dry spell for weeks. She slipped off her jacket after theystarted, and gave it to Kenby, but she let General Triscoe hold herumbrella over her, while he limped beside her. She seemed to March, as hefollowed with Rose, to be playing the two men off against each other, with an ease which he wished his wife could be there to see, and to judgearight. 

They crossed by the Old Bridge, which is of the earliest years of theseventh century, between rows of saints whose statues surmount the piers. Some are bishops as well as saints; one must have been at Rome in hisday, for he wore his long thick beard in the fashion of Michelangelo'sMoses. He stretched out toward the passers two fingers of blessing andwas unaware of the sparrow which had lighted on them and was giving himthe effect of offering it to the public admiration. Squads of soldierstramping by turned to look and smile, and the dull faces of citizenslighted up at the quaint sight. Some children stopped and remained veryquiet, not to scare away the bird; and a cold-faced, spiritual-lookingpriest paused among them as if doubting whether to rescue theabsent-minded bishop from a situation derogatory to his dignity; but hepassed on, and then the sparrow suddenly flew off. 

Rose Adding had lingered for the incident with March, but they now pushedon, and came up with the others at the end of the bridge, where theyfound them in question whether they had not better take a carriage anddrive to the foot of the hill before they began their climb. Marchthanked them, but said he was keeping up the terms of his cure, and wasgetting in all the walking he could. Rose begged his mother not toinclude him in the driving party; he protested that he was feeling sowell, and the walk was doing him good. His mother consented, if he wouldpromise not to get tired, and then she mounted into the two-spanner whichhad driven instinctively up to their party when their parley began, andGeneral Triscoe took the place beside her, while Kenby, with smilingpatience, seated himself in front. 

Rose kept on talking with March about Wurzburg and its history, which itseemed he had been reading the night before when he could not sleep. Heexplained, "We get little histories of the places wherever we go. That'swhat Mr. Kenby does, you know. "

"Oh, yes, " said March. 

"I don't suppose I shall get a chance to read much here, " Rose continued, "with General Triscoe in the room. He doesn't like the light. "

"Well, well. He's rather old, you know. And you musn't read too much, Rose. It isn't good for you. "

"I know, but if I don't read, I think, and that keeps me awake worse. Ofcourse, I respect General Triscoe for being in the war, and gettingwounded, " the boy suggested. 

"A good many did it, " March was tempted to say. 

The boy did not notice his insinuation. "I suppose there were some thingsthey did in the army, and then they couldn't get over the habit. ButGeneral Grant says in his 'Life' that he never used a profane expletive. "

"Does General Triscoe?"

Rose answered reluctantly, "If anything wakes him in the night, or if hecan't make these German beds over to suit him--"

"I see. " March turned his face to hide the smile which he would not havelet the boy detect. He thought best not to let Rose resume hisimpressions of the general; and in talk of weightier matters they foundthemselves at that point of the climb where the carriage was waiting forthem. From this point they followed an alley through ivied, garden walls, till they reached the first of the balustraded terraces which ascend tothe crest of the hill where the church stands. Each terrace is plantedwith sycamores, and the face of the terrace wall supports a bass-reliefcommemorating with the drama of its lifesize figures the stations of thecross. 

Monks and priests were coming and going, and dropped on the steps leadingfrom terrace to terrace were women and children on their knees in prayer. It was all richly reminiscent of pilgrim scenes in other Catholic lands;but here there was a touch of earnest in the Northern face of theworshipers which the South had never imparted. Even in the beautifulrococo interior of the church at the top of the hill there was a sense ofsomething deeper and truer than mere ecclesiasticism; and March came outof it in a serious muse while the boy at his side did nothing tointerrupt. A vague regret filled his heart as he gazed silently out overthe prospect of river and city and vineyard, purpling together below thetop where he stood, and mixed with this regret was a vague resentment ofhis wife's absence. She ought to have been there to share his pang andhis pleasure; they had so long enjoyed everything together that withouther he felt unable to get out of either emotion all there was in it. 

The forgotten boy stole silently down the terraces after the rest of theparty who had left him behind with March. At the last terrace theystopped and waited; and after a delay that began to be long to Mrs. Adding, she wondered aloud what could have become of them. 

Kenby promptly offered to go back and see, and she consented in seemingto refuse: "It isn't worth while. Rose has probably got Mr. March intosome deep discussion, and they've forgotten all about us. But if you willgo, Mr. Kenby, you might just remind Rose of my existence. " She let himlay her jacket on her shoulders before he left her, and then she sat downon one of the steps, which General Triscoe kept striking with the pointof her umbrella as he stood before her. 

"I really shall have to take it from you if you do that any more, " shesaid, laughing up in his face. "I'm serious. "

He stopped. "I wish I could believe you were serious, for a moment. "

"You may, if you think it will do you any good. But I don't see why. "

The general smiled, but with a kind of tremulous eagerness which mighthave been pathetic to any one who liked him. "Do you know this is almostthe first time I have spoken alone with you?"

"Really, I hadn't noticed, " said Mrs. Adding. 

General Triscoe laughed in rather a ghastly way. "Well, that'sencouraging, at least, to a man who's had his doubts whether it wasn'tintended. "

"Intended? By whom? What do you mean, General Triscoe? Why in the worldshouldn't you have spoken alone with me before?"

He was not, with all his eagerness, ready to say, and while she smiledpleasantly she had the look in her eyes of being brought to bay and beingprepared, if it must come to that, to have the worst over, then andthere. She was not half his age, but he was aware of her having norespect for his years; compared with her average American past as heunderstood it, his social place was much higher, but, she was not in theleast awed by it; in spite of his war record she was making him behavelike a coward. He was in a false position, and if he had any one buthimself to blame he had not her. He read her equal knowledge of thesefacts in the clear eyes that made him flush and turn his own away. 

Then he started with a quick "Hello!" and stood staring up at the stepsfrom the terrace above, where Rose Adding was staying himself weakly by aclutch of Kenby on one side and March on the other. 

His mother looked round and caught herself up from where she sat and rantoward him. "Oh, Rose!"

"It's nothing, mother, " he called to her, and as she dropped on her kneesbefore him he sank limply against her. "It was like what I had inCarlsbad; that's all. Don't worry about me, please!"

"I'm not worrying, Rose, " she said with courage of the same texture ashis own. "You've been walking too much. You must go back in the carriagewith us. Can't you have it come here?" she asked Kenby. 

"There's no road, Mrs. Adding. But if Rose would let me carry him--"

"I can walk, " the boy protested, trying to lift himself from her neck. 

"No, no! you mustn't. " She drew away and let him fall into the arms thatKenby put round him. He raised the frail burden lightly to his shoulder, and moved strongly away, followed by the eyes of the spectators who hadgathered about the little group, but who dispersed now, and went back totheir devotions. 

March hurried after Kenby with Mrs. Adding, whom he told he had justmissed Rose and was looking about for him, when Kenby came with hermessage for them. They made sure that he was nowhere about the church, and then started together down the terraces. At the second or thirdstation below they found the boy clinging to the barrier that protectedthe bass-relief from the zeal of the devotees. He looked white and sick, though he insisted that he was well, and when he turned to come away withthem he reeled and would have fallen if Kenby had not caught him. Kenbywanted to carry him, but Rose would not let him, and had made his waydown between them. 

"Yea, he has such a spirit, " she said, "and I've no doubt he's sufferingnow more from Mr. Kenby's kindness than from his own sickness he had oneof these giddy turns in Carlsbad, though, and I shall certainly have adoctor to see him. "

"I think I should, Mrs. Adding, " said March, not too gravely, for itseemed to him that it was not quite his business to alarm her further, ifshe was herself taking the affair with that seriousness. He questionedwhether she was taking it quite seriously enough, when she turned with alaugh, and called to General Triscoe, who was limping down the steps ofthe last terrace behind them:

"Oh, poor General Triscoe! I thought you had gone on ahead. "

General Triscoe could not enter into the joke of being forgotten, apparently. He assisted with gravity at the disposition of the party forthe return, when they all reached the carriage. Rose had the place besidehis mother, and Kenby wished March to take his with the general and lethim sit with the driver; but he insisted that he would rather walk home, and he did walk till they had driven out of eight. Then he called apassing one-spanner, and drove to his hotel in comfort and silence. 

LVII. 

Kenby did not come to the Swan before supper; then he reported that thedoctor had said Rose was on the verge of a nervous collapse. He hadoverworked at school, but the immediate trouble was the high, thin air, which the doctor said he must be got out of at once, into a quiet placeat the sea-shore somewhere. He had suggested Ostend; or some point on theFrench coast; Kenby had thought of Schevleningen, and the doctor had saidthat would do admirably. 

"I understood from Mrs. Adding, " he concluded, "that you were going. There for your after-cure, Mr. March, and I didn't know but you might begoing soon. "

At the mention of Schevleningen the Marches had looked at each other witha guilty alarm, which they both tried to give the cast of affectionatesympathy but she dismissed her fear that he might be going to let hiscompassion prevail with him to his hurt when he said: "Why, we ought tohave been there before this, but I've been taking my life in my hands intrying to see a little of Germany, and I'm afraid now that Mrs. March hasher mind too firmly fixed on Berlin to let me think of going toSchevleningen till we've been there. "

"It's too bad!" said Mrs. March, with real regret. "I wish we weregoing. " But she had not the least notion of gratifying her wish; and theywere all silent till Kenby broke out:

"Look here! You know how I feel about Mrs Adding! I've been pretty frankwith Mr. March myself, and I've had my suspicions that she's been frankwith you, Mrs. March. There isn't any doubt about my wanting to marryher, and up to this time there hasn't been any doubt about her notwanting to marry me. But it isn't a question of her or of me, now. It's aquestion of Rose. I love the boy, " and Kenby's voice shook, and hefaltered a moment. "Pshaw! You understand. "

"Indeed I do, Mr. Kenby, " said Mrs. March. "I perfectly understand you. "

"Well, I don't think Mrs. Adding is fit to make the journey with himalone, or to place herself in the best way after she gets toSchevleningen. She's been badly shaken up; she broke down before thedoctor; she said she didn't know what to do; I suppose she'sfrightened--"

Kenby stopped again, and March asked, "When is she going?"

"To-morrow, " said Kenby, and he added, "And now the question is, whyshouldn't I go with her?"

Mrs. March gave a little start, and looked at her husband, but he saidnothing, and Kenby seemed not to have supposed that he would sayanything. 

"I know it would be very American, and all that, but I happen to be anAmerican, and it wouldn't be out of character for me. I suppose, " heappealed to Mrs. March, "that it's something I might offer to do if itwere from New York to Florida--and I happened to be going there? And Idid happen to be going to Holland. "

"Why, of course, Mr. Kenby, " she responded, with such solemnity thatMarch gave way in an outrageous laugh. 

Kenby laughed, and Mrs. March laughed too, but with an inner note ofprotest. 

"Well, " Kenby continued, still addressing her, "what I want you to do isto stand by me when I propose it. "

Mrs. March gathered strength to say, "No, Mr. Kenby, it's your ownaffair, and you must take the responsibility. "

"Do you disapprove?"

"It isn't the same as it would be at home. You see that yourself. "

"Well, " said Kenby, rising, "I have to arrange about their getting awayto-morrow. It won't be easy in this hurly-burly that's coming off. "

"Give Rose our love; and tell Mrs. Adding that I'll come round and seeher to-morrow before she starts. "

"Oh! I'm afraid you can't, Mrs. March. They're to start at six in themorning. "

"They are! Then we must go and see them tonight. We'll be there almost assoon as you are. "

March went up to their rooms with, his wife, and she began on the stairs:

"Well, my dear, I hope you realize that your laughing so gave uscompletely away. And what was there to keep grinning about, all through?"

"Nothing but the disingenuous, hypocritical passion of love. It's alwaysthe most amusing thing in the world; but to see it trying to pass itselfoff in poor old Kenby as duty and humanity, and disinterested affectionfor Rose, was more than I could stand. I don't apologize for laughing; Iwanted to yell. "

His effrontery and his philosophy both helped to save him; and she saidfrom the point where he had side-tracked her mind: "I don't call itdisingenuous. He was brutally frank. He's made it impossible to treat theaffair with dignity. I want you to leave the whole thing to me, from thisout. Now, will you?"

On their way to the Spanischer Hof she arranged in her own mind for Mrs. Adding to get a maid, and for the doctor to send an assistant with her onthe journey, but she was in such despair with her scheme that she had notthe courage to right herself when Mrs. Adding met her with the appeal:

"Oh, Mrs. March, I'm so glad you approve of Mr. Kenby's plan. It doesseem the only thing to do. I can't trust myself alone with Rose, and Mr. Kenby's intending to go to Schevleningen a few days later anyway. Thoughit's too bad to let him give up the manoeuvres. "

"I'm sure he won't mind that, " Mrs. March's voice said mechanically, while her thought was busy with the question whether this scandalousduplicity was altogether Kenby's, and whether Mrs. Adding was asguiltless of any share in it as she looked. She looked pitifullydistracted; she might not have understood his report; or Kenby mightreally have mistaken Mrs. March's sympathy for favor. 

"No, he only lives to do good, " Mrs. Adding returned. "He's with Rose;won't you come in and see them?"

Rose was lying back on the pillows of a sofa, from which they would notlet him get up. He was full of the trip to Holland, and had alreadypushed Kenby, as Kenby owned, beyond the bounds of his very generalknowledge of the Dutch language, which Rose had plans for taking up afterthey were settled in Schevleningen. The boy scoffed at the notion that hewas not perfectly well, and he wished to talk with March on the pointswhere he had found Kenby wanting. 

"Kenby is an encyclopaedia compared with me, Rose, " the editor protested, and he amplified his ignorance for the boy's good to an extent which Rosesaw was a joke. He left Holland to talk about other things which hismother thought quite as bad for him. He wished to know if March did notthink that the statue of the bishop with the sparrow on its finger was asubject for a poem; and March said gayly that if Rose would write it hewould print it in 'Every Other Week'. 

The boy flushed with pleasure at his banter. "No, I couldn't do it. But Iwish Mr. Burnamy had seen it. He could. Will you tell him about it?" Hewanted to know if March had heard from Burnamy lately, and in the midstof his vivid interest he gave a weary sigh. 

His mother said that now he had talked enough, and bade him say good-byto the Marches, who were coming so soon to Holland, anyway. Mrs. Marchput her arms round him to kiss him, and when she let him sink back hereyes were dim. 

"You see how frail he is?" said Mrs. Adding. "I shall not let him out ofmy sight, after this, till he's well again. "

She had a kind of authority in sending Kenby away with them which was notlost upon the witnesses. He asked them to come into the reading-room amoment with him, and Mrs. March wondered if he were going to make someexcuse to her for himself; but he said: "I don't know how we're to manageabout the Triscoes. The general will have a room to himself, but if Mrs. Adding takes Rose in with her, it leaves Miss Triscoe out, and thereisn't a room to be had in this house for love or money. Do you think, " heappealed directly to Mrs. March, "that it would do to offer her my roomat the Swan?"

"Why, yes, " she assented, with a reluctance rather for the complicity inwhich he had already involved her, and for which he was still unpunished, than for what he was now proposing. "Or she could come in with me, andMr. March could take it. "

"Whichever you think, " said Kenby so submissively that she relented, toask:

"And what will you do?"

He laughed. "Well, people have been known to sleep in a chair. I shallmanage somehow. "

"You might offer to go in with the general, " March suggested, and the menapparently thought this was a joke. Mrs. March did not laugh in herfeminine worry about ways and means. 

"Where is Miss Triscoe?" she asked. "We haven't seen them. "

"Didn't Mrs. Adding tell you? They went to supper at a restaurant; thegeneral doesn't like the cooking here. They ought to have been backbefore this. "

He looked up at the clock on the wall, and she said, "I suppose you wouldlike us to wait. "

"It would be very kind of you. "

"Oh, it's quite essential, " she returned with an airy freshness whichKenby did not seem to feel as painfully as he ought. 

They all sat down, and the Triscoes came in after a few minutes, and acloud on the general's face lifted at the proposition Kenby left Mrs. March to make. 

"I thought that child ought to be in his mother's charge, " he said. Withhis own comfort provided for, he made no objections to Mrs. March's plan;and Agatha went to take leave of Rose and his mother. "By-the-way, " thegeneral turned to March, "I found Stoller at the restaurant where wesupped. He offered me a place in his carriage for the manoeuvres. How areyou going?"

"I think I shall go by train. I don't fancy the long drive. "

"Well, I don't know that it's worse than the long walk after you leavethe train, " said the general from the offence which any difference oftaste was apt to give him. "Are you going by train, too?" he asked Kenbywith indifference. 

"I'm not going at all, " said Kenby. "I'm leaving Wurzburg in themorning. "

"Oh, indeed, " said the general. 

Mrs. March could not make out whether he knew that Kenby was going withRose and Mrs. Adding, but she felt that there must be a full and openrecognition of the fact among them. "Yes, " she said, "isn't it fortunatethat Mr. Kenby should be going to Holland, too! I should have been sounhappy about them if Mrs. Adding had been obliged to make that longjourney with poor little Rose alone. "

"Yes, yes; very fortunate, certainly, " said the general colorlessly. 

Her husband gave her a glance of intelligent appreciation; but Kenby wastoo simply, too densely content with the situation to know the value ofwhat she had done. She thought he must certainly explain, as he walkedback with her to the Swan, whether he had misrepresented her to Mrs. Adding, or Mrs. Adding had misunderstood him. Somewhere there had been anerror, or a duplicity which it was now useless to punish; and Kenby wasso apparently unconscious of it that she had not the heart to be crosswith him. She heard Miss Triscoe behind her with March laughing in thegayety which the escape from her father seemed to inspire in her. She waspromising March to go with him in the morning to see the Emperor andEmpress of Germany arrive at the station, and he was warning her that ifshe laughed there, like that, she would subject him to fine andimprisonment. She pretended that she would like to see him led offbetween two gendarmes, but consented to be a little careful when he askedher how she expected to get back to her hotel without him, if such athing happened. 

LVIII. 

After all, Miss Triscoe did not go with March; she preferred to sleep. The imperial party was to arrive at half past seven, but at six the crowdwas already dense before the station, and all along the street leading tothe Residenz. It was a brilliant day, with the promise of sunshine, through which a chilly wind blew, for the manoeuvres. The colors of allthe German states flapped in this breeze from the poles wreathed withevergreen which encircled the square; the workmen putting the lasttouches on the bronzed allegory hurried madly to be done, and they had, scarcely finished their labors when two troops of dragoons rode into theplace and formed before the station, and waited as motionlessly as theirhorses would allow. 

These animals were not so conscious as lions at the approach of princes;they tossed and stamped impatiently in the long interval before theRegent and his daughter-in-law came to welcome their guests. All thehuman beings, both those who were in charge and those who were undercharge, were in a quiver of anxiety to play their parts well, as if therewere some heavy penalty for failure in the least point. The policemenkeeping the people, in line behind the ropes which restrained themtrembled with eagerness; the faces of some of the troopers twitched. Aninvoluntary sigh went up from the crowd as the Regent's carriageappeared, heralded by outriders, and followed by other plain carriages ofBavarian blue with liveries of blue and silver. Then the whistle of theKaiser's train sounded; a trumpeter advanced and began to blow histrumpet as they do in the theatre; and exactly at the appointed momentthe Emperor and Empress came out of the station through the brillianthuman alley leading from it, mounted their carriages, with the stagetrumpeter always blowing, and whirled swiftly round half the square andflashed into the corner toward the Residenz out of sight. The same hollowgroans of Ho-o-o-ch greeted and followed them from the spectators as hadwelcomed the Regent when he first arrived among his fellow-townsmen, withthe same effect of being the conventional cries of a stage mob behind thescenes. 

The Emperor was like most of his innumerable pictures, with a swarthyface from which his blue eyes glanced pleasantly; he looked good-humoredif not good-natured; the Empress smiled amiably beneath her deeplyfringed white parasol, and they both bowed right and left inacknowledgment of those hollow groans; but again it seemed, to March thatsovereignty, gave the popular curiosity, not to call it devotion, ascantier return than it merited. He had perhaps been insensibly workingtoward some such perception as now came to him that the great differencebetween Europe and America was that in Europe life is histrionic anddramatized, and that in America, except when it is trying to be European, it is direct and sincere. He wondered whether the innate conviction ofequality, the deep, underlying sense of a common humanity transcendingall social and civic pretences, was what gave their theatrical effect tothe shows of deference from low to high, and of condescension from highto low. If in such encounters of sovereigns and subjects, the prince didnot play his part so well as the people, it might be that he had a harderpart to play, and that to support his dignity at all, to keep from beingfound out the sham that he essentially was, he had to hurry across thestage amidst the distracting thunders of the orchestra. If the star staidto be scrutinized by the soldiers, citizens, and so forth, even the poorsupernumeraries and scene-shifters might see that he was a tallow candlelike themselves. 

In the censorious mood induced by the reflection that he had waited anhour and a half for half a minute's glimpse of the imperial party, Marchnow decided not to go to the manoeuvres, where he might be subjected tostill greater humiliation and disappointment. He had certainly come toWurzburg for the manoeuvres, but Wurzburg had been richly repaying initself; and why should he stifle half an hour in an overcrowded train, and struggle for three miles on foot against that harsh wind, to see amultitude of men give proofs of their fitness to do manifold murder? Hewas, in fact, not the least curious for the sight, and the only thingthat really troubled him was the question of how he should justify hisrecreance to his wife. This did alloy the pleasure with which he began, after an excellent breakfast at a neighboring cafe, to stroll about thestreets, though he had them almost to himself, so many citizens hadfollowed the soldiers to the manoeuvres. 

It was not till the soldiers began returning from the manoeuvres, dusty-footed, and in white canvas overalls drawn over their trousers tosave them, that he went back to Mrs. March and Miss Triscoe at the Swan. He had given them time enough to imagine him at the review, and to wonderwhether he had seen General Triscoe and the Stollers there, and they methim with such confident inquiries that he would not undeceive them atonce. He let them divine from his inventive answers that he had not goneto the manoeuvres, which put them in the best humor with themselves, andthe girl said it was so cold and rough that she wished her father had notgone, either. The general appeared just before dinner and frankly avowedthe same wish. He was rasping and wheezing from the dust which filled hislungs; he looked blown and red, and he was too angry with the company hehad been in to have any comments on the manoeuvres. He referred to themilitary chiefly in relation to the Miss Stollers' ineffectualflirtations, which he declared had been outrageous. Their father hadapparently no control over them whatever, or else was too ignorant toknow that they were misbehaving. They were without respect or reverencefor any one; they had talked to General Triscoe as if he were a boy oftheir own age, or a dotard whom nobody need mind; they had not only keptup their foolish babble before him, they had laughed and giggled, theyhad broken into snatches of American song, they had all but whistled anddanced. They made loud comments in Illinois English--on the cuteness ofthe officers whom they admired, and they had at one time actually got outtheir handkerchiefs. He supposed they meant to wave them at the officers, but at the look he gave them they merely put their hats together andsnickered in derision of him. They were American girls of the worst type;they conformed to no standard of behavior; their conduct was personal. They ought to be taken home. 

Mrs. March said she saw what he meant, and she agreed with him that theywere altogether unformed, and were the effect of their own ignorantcaprices. Probably, however, it was too late to amend them by taking themaway. 

"It would hide them, at any rate, " he answered. "They would sink backinto the great mass of our vulgarity, and not be noticed. We behave likea parcel of peasants with our women. We think that if no harm is meant orthought, we may risk any sort of appearance, and we do things that arescandalously improper simply because they are innocent. That may be allvery well at home, but people who prefer that sort of thing had betterstay there, where our peasant manners won't make them conspicuous. "

As their train ran northward out of Wurzburg that afternoon, Mrs. Marchrecurred to the general's closing words. "That was a slap at Mrs. Addingfor letting Kenby go off with her. "

She took up the history of the past twenty-four hours, from the timeMarch had left her with Miss Triscoe when he went with her father and theAddings and Kenby to see that church. She had had no chance to bring upthese arrears until now, and she atoned to herself for the delay bymaking the history very full, and going back and adding touches at anypoint where she thought she had scanted it. After all, it consistedmainly of fragmentary intimations from Miss Triscoe and of half-utteredquestions which her own art now built into a coherent statement. 

March could not find that the general had much resented Burnamy'sclandestine visit to Carlsbad when his daughter told him of it, or thathe had done more than make her promise that she would not keep up theacquaintance upon any terms unknown to him. 

"Probably, " Mrs. March said, "as long as he had any hopes of Mrs. Adding, he was a little too self-conscious to be very up and down about Burnamy. "

"Then you think he was really serious about her?"

"Now my dear! He was so serious that I suppose he was never so completelytaken aback in his life as when he met Kenby in Wurzburg and saw how shereceived him. Of course, that put an end to the fight. "

"The fight?"

"Yes--that Mrs. Adding and Agatha were keeping up to prevent his offeringhimself. "

"Oh! And how do you know that they were keeping up the fight together?"

"How do I? Didn't you see yourself what friends they were? Did you tellhim what Stoller had, said about Burnamy?"

"I had no chance. I don't know that I should have done it, anyway. Itwasn't my affair. "

"Well, then, I think you might. It would have been everything for thatpoor child; it would have completely justified her in her own eyes. "

"Perhaps your telling her will serve the same purpose. "

"Yes, I did tell her, and I am glad of it. She had a right to know it. "

"Did she think Stoller's willingness to overlook Burnamy's performancehad anything to do with its moral quality?"

Mrs. March was daunted for the moment, but she said, "I told her youthought that if a person owned to a fault they disowned it, and put itaway from them just as if it had never been committed; and that if aperson had taken their punishment for a wrong they had done, they hadexpiated it so far as anybody else was concerned. And hasn't poor Burnamydone both?"

As a moralist March was flattered to be hoist with his own petard, but asa husband he was not going to come down at once. "I thought probably youhad told her that. You had it pat from having just been over it with me. When has she heard from him?"

"Why, that's the strangest thing about it. She hasn't heard at all. Shedoesn't know where he is. She thought we must know. She was terriblybroken up. "

"How did she show it?"

"She didn't show it. Either you want to tease, or you've forgotten howsuch things are with young people--or at least girls. "

"Yes, it's all a long time ago with me, and I never was a girl. Besides, the frank and direct behavior of Kenby and Mrs. Adding has been veryobliterating to my early impressions of love-making. "

"It certainly hasn't been ideal, " said Mrs. March with a sigh. 

"Why hasn't it been ideal?" he asked. "Kenby is tremendously in love withher; and I believe she's had a fancy for him from the beginning. If ithadn't been for Rose she would have accepted him at once; and now he'sessential to them both in their helplessness. As for Papa Triscoe and hisEuropeanized scruples, if they have any reality at all they're theresiduum of his personal resentment, and Kenby and Mrs. Adding havenothing to do with their unreality. His being in love with her is noreason why he shouldn't be helpful to her when she needs him, and everyreason why he should. I call it a poem, such as very few people have theluck to live out together. "

Mrs. March listened with mounting fervor, and when he stopped, she criedout, "Well, my dear, I do believe you are right! It is ideal, as you say;it's a perfect poem. And I shall always say--"

She stopped at the mocking light which she caught in his look, andperceived that he had been amusing himself with her perennial enthusiasmfor all sorts of love-affairs. But she averred that she did not care;what he had said was true, and she should always hold him to it. 

They were again in the wedding-journey sentiment in which they had leftCarlsbad, when they found themselves alone together after their escapefrom the pressure of others' interests. The tide of travel was towardsFrankfort, where the grand parade was to take place some days later. Theywere going to Weimar, which was so few hours out of their way that theysimply must not miss it; and all the way to the old literary capital theywere alone in their compartment, with not even a stranger, much less afriend to molest them. The flying landscape without was of their ownearly autumnal mood, and when the vineyards of Wurzburg ceased to purpleit, the heavy after-math of hay and clover, which men, women, andchildren were loading on heavy wains, and driving from the meadowseverywhere, offered a pastoral and pleasing change. It was always theGerman landscape; sometimes flat and fertile, sometimes hilly and poor;often clothed with dense woods, but always charming, with castled tops inruin or repair, and with levels where Gothic villages drowsed withintheir walls, and dreamed of the mediaeval past, silent, without apparentlife, except for some little goose-girl driving her flock before her asshe sallied out into the nineteenth century in search of fresh pasturage. 

As their train mounted among the Thuringian uplands they were aware of afiner, cooler air through their open window. The torrents foamed whiteout of the black forests of fir and pine, and brawled along the valleys, where the hamlets roused themselves in momentary curiosity as the trainroared into them from the many tunnels. The afternoon sunshine had theglister of mountain sunshine everywhere, and the travellers had apleasant bewilderment in which their memories of Switzerland and theWhite Mountains mixed with long-dormant emotions from Adirondacksojourns. They chose this place and that in the lovely region where theylamented that they had not come at once for the after-cure, and theyappointed enough returns to it in future years to consume all the summersthey had left to live. 

LIX. 

It was falling night when they reached Weimar, where they found at thestation a provision of omnibuses far beyond the hotel accommodations. They drove first to the Crown-Prince, which was in a promising state ofreparation, but which for the present could only welcome them to anapartment where a canvas curtain cut them off from a freshly plasteredwall. The landlord deplored the fact, and sent hospitably out to try andplace them at the Elephant. But the Elephant was full, and the RussianCourt was full too. Then the landlord of the Crown-Prince bethoughthimself of a new hotel, of the second class, indeed, but very nice, wherethey might get rooms, and after the delay of an hour, they got a carriageand drove away from the Crown-Prince, where the landlord continued to thelast as benevolent as if they had been a profit instead of a loss to him. 

The streets of the town at nine o'clock were empty and quiet, and theyinstantly felt the academic quality of the place. Through the pale nightthey could see that the architecture was of the classic sentiment whichthey were destined to feel more and more; at one point they caught afleeting glimpse of two figures with clasped hands and half embraced, which they knew for the statues of Goethe and Schiller; and when theymounted to their rooms at the Grand-Duke of Saxe-Weimar, they passedunder a fresco representing Goethe and four other world-famous poets, Shakspere, Milton, Tasso, and Schiller. The poets all looked likeGermans, as was just, and Goethe was naturally chief among them; hemarshalled the immortals on their way, and Schiller brought up the rearand kept them from going astray in an Elysium where they did not speakthe language. For the rest, the hotel was brand-new, of a quite Americanfreshness, and was pervaded by a sweet smell as of straw matting, andprovided with steam-radiators. In the sense of its homelikeness theMarches boasted that they were never going away from it. 

In the morning they discovered that their windows looked out on thegrand-ducal museum, with a gardened space before and below itsclassicistic bulk, where, in a whim of the weather, the gay flowers werefull of sun. In a pleasant illusion of taking it unawares, March strolledup through the town; but Weimar was as much awake at that hour as at anyof the twenty-four, and the tranquillity of its streets, where heencountered a few passers several blocks apart, was their habitual mood. He came promptly upon two objects which he would willingly have shunned:a 'denkmal' of the Franco-German war, not so furiously bad as most Germanmonuments, but antipathetic and uninteresting, as all patriotic monumentsare; and a woman-and-dog team. In the shock from this he was sensiblethat he had not seen any woman-and-dog teams for some time, and hewondered by what civic or ethnic influences their distribution was socontrolled that they should have abounded in Hamburg, Leipsic, andCarlsbad, and wholly ceased in Nuremberg, Ansbach, and Wurzburg, toreappear again in Weimar, though they seemed as characteristic of allGermany as the ugly denkmals to her victories over France. 

The Goethe and Schiller monument which he had glimpsed the night beforewas characteristic too, but less offensively so. German statues at thebest are conscious; and the poet-pair, as the inscription calls them, have the air of showily confronting posterity with their clasped hands, and of being only partially rapt from the spectators. But they were moreunconscious than any other German statues that March had seen, and hequelled a desire to ask Goethe, as he stood with his hand on Schiller'sshoulder, and looked serenely into space far above one of the typicalequipages of his country, what he thought of that sort of thing. But uponreflection he did not know why Goethe should be held personallyresponsible for the existence of the woman-and-dog team. He felt that hemight more reasonably attribute to his taste the prevalence of classicprofiles which he began to note in the Weimar populace. This could be asympathetic effect of that passion for the antique which the poet broughtback with him from his sojourn in Italy; though many of the people, especially the children, were bow-legged. Perhaps the antique had: begunin their faces, and had not yet got down to their legs; in any case theywere charming children, and as a test of their culture, he had a mind toask a little girl if she could tell him where the statue of Herder was, which he thought he might as well take in on his ramble, and so be donewith as many statues as he could. She answered with a pretty regret inher tender voice, "That I truly cannot, " and he was more satisfied thanif she could, for he thought it better to be a child and honest, than toknow where any German statue was. 

He easily found it for himself in the place which is called the HerderPlatz after it. He went into the Peter and Paul Church there; whereHerder used to preach sermons, sometimes not at all liked by the nobilityand gentry for their revolutionary tendency; the sovereign was shieldedfrom the worst effects of his doctrine by worshipping apart from othersinners in a glazed gallery. Herder is buried in the church, and when youask where, the sacristan lifts a wooden trap-door in the pavement, andyou think you are going down into the crypt, but you are only to seeHerder's monumental stone, which is kept covered so to save it frompassing feet. Here also is the greatest picture of that great soul LukeKranach, who had sincerity enough in his paining to atone for all theswelling German sculptures in the world. It is a crucifixion, and thecross is of a white birch log, such as might have been cut out of theWeimar woods, shaved smooth on the sides, with the bark showing at theedges. Kranach has put himself among the spectators, and a stream ofblood from the side of the Savior falls in baptism upon the painter'shead. He is in the company of John the Baptist and Martin Luther; Lutherstands with his Bible open, and his finger on the line, "The blood ofJesus cleanseth us. "

Partly because he felt guilty at doing all these things without his wife, and partly because he was now very hungry, March turned from them and gotback to his hotel, where she was looking out for him from their openwindow. She had the air of being long domesticated there, as she laugheddown at seeing him come; and the continued brilliancy of the weatheradded to the illusion of home. 

It was like a day of late spring in Italy or America; the sun in thatgardened hollow before the museum was already hot enough to make him gladof the shelter of the hotel. The summer seemed to have come back tooblige them, and when they learned that they were to see Weimar in afestive mood because this was Sedan Day, their curiosity, if not theirsympathy, accepted the chance gratefully. But they were almost moved towish that the war had gone otherwise when they learned that all thepublic carriages were engaged, and they must have one from a stable ifthey wished to drive after breakfast. Still it was offered them for sucha modest number of marks, and their driver proved so friendly andconversable, that they assented to the course of history, and were moreand more reconciled as they bowled along through the grand-ducal parkbeside the waters of the classic Ilm. 

The waters of the classic Ilm are sluggish and slimy in places, and inplaces clear and brooklike, but always a dull dark green in color. Theyflow in the shadow of pensive trees, and by the brinks of sunny meadows, where the after-math wanders in heavy windrows, and the children sportjoyously over the smooth-mown surfaces in all the freedom that there isin Germany. At last, after immemorial appropriation the owners of theearth are everywhere expropriated, and the people come into the pleasureif not the profit of it. At last, the prince, the knight, the noblefinds, as in his turn the plutocrat will find, that his property is notfor him, but for all; and that the nation is to enjoy what he takes fromit and vainly thinks to keep from it. Parks, pleasaunces, gardens, setapart for kings, are the play-grounds of the landless poor in the OldWorld, and perhaps yield the sweetest joy of privilege to some state-sickruler, some world-weary princess, some lonely child born to the solitudeof sovereignty, as they each look down from their palace windows upon theleisure of overwork taking its little holiday amidst beauty vainlycreated for the perpetual festival of their empty lives. 

March smiled to think that in this very Weimar, where sovereignty hadgraced and ennobled itself as nowhere else in the world by thecompanionship of letters and the arts, they still were not hurrying firstto see the palace of a prince, but were involuntarily making it second tothe cottage of a poet. But in fact it is Goethe who is forever the princein Weimar. His greatness blots out its history, his name fills the city;the thought of him is its chiefest imitation and largest hospitality. Thetravellers remembered, above all other facts of the grand-ducal park, that it was there he first met Christiane Vulpius, beautiful and young, when he too was beautiful and young, and took her home to be his love, tothe just and lasting displeasure of Fran von Stein, who was even lessreconciled when, after eighteen years of due reflection, the love ofGoethe and Christiane became their marriage. They, wondered just where itwas he saw the young girl coming to meet him as the Grand-Duke's ministerwith an office-seeking petition from her brother, Goethe's brotherauthor, long famed and long forgotten for his romantic tale of "RinaldoRinaldini. "

They had indeed no great mind, in their American respectability, for thatrather matter-of-fact and deliberate liaison, and little as theirsympathy was for the passionless intellectual intrigue with the Frau vonStein, it cast no halo of sentiment about the Goethe cottage to supposethat there his love-life with Christiane began. Mrs. March even resentedthe fact, and when she learned later that it was not the fact at all, sheremoved it from her associations with the pretty place almostindignantly. 

In spite of our facile and multiple divorces we Americans are worshipersof marriage, and if a great poet, the minister of a prince, is going tomarry a poor girl, we think he had better not wait till their son isalmost of age. Mrs. March would not accept as extenuating circumstancesthe Grand-Duke's godfatherhood, or Goethe's open constancy to Christiane, or the tardy consecration of their union after the French sack of, Weimar, when the girl's devotion had saved him from the rudeness of themarauding soldiers. For her New England soul there were no degrees insuch guilt; and, perhaps there are really not so many as people havetried to think, in their deference to Goethe's greatness. But certainlythe affair was not so simple for a grand-ducal minister of world-widerenown, and he might well have felt its difficulties, for he could nothave been proof against the censorious public opinion of Weimar, or theyet more censorious private opinion of Fran von Stein. 

On that lovely Italo-American morning no ghost of these old deadembarrassments lingered within or without the Goethe garden-house. Thetrees which the poet himself planted flung a sun-shot shadow upon it, andabout its feet basked a garden of simple flowers, from which the sweetlame girl who limped through the rooms and showed them, gathered aparting nosegay for her visitors. The few small livingrooms were abovethe ground-floor, with kitchen and offices below in the Italian fashion;in one of the little chambers was the camp-bed which Goethe carried withhim on his journeys through Italy; and in the larger room at the frontstood the desk where he wrote, with the chair before it from which hemight just have risen. 

All was much more livingly conscious of the great man gone than the proudlittle palace in the town, which so abounds with relics and memorials ofhim. His library, his study, his study table, with everything on it justas he left it when

 "Cadde la stanca mana"

are there, and there is the death-chair facing the window, from which hegasped for "more light" at last. The handsome, well-arranged rooms arefull of souvenirs of his travel, and of that passion for Italy which hedid so much to impart to all German hearts, and whose modern waningleaves its records here of an interest pathetically, almost amusingly, faded. They intimate the classic temper to which his mind tended more andmore, and amidst the multitude of sculptures, pictures, prints, drawings, gems, medals, autographs, there is the sense of the many-mindedness, theuniversal taste, for which he found room in little Weimar, but not in hiscontemporaneous Germany. But it is all less keenly personal, lessintimate than the simple garden-house, or else, with the great troop ofpeople going through it, and the custodians lecturing in various voicesand languages to the attendant groups, the Marches had it less tothemselves, and so imagined him less in it. 

LX. 

All palaces have a character of tiresome unlivableness which is common tothem everywhere, and very probably if one could meet their proprietors inthem one would as little remember them apart afterwards as the palacesthemselves. It will not do to lift either houses or men far out of theaverage; they become spectacles, ceremonies; they cease to have charm, tohave character, which belong to the levels of life, where alone there areease and comfort, and human nature may be itself, with all the littledelightful differences repressed in those who represent and typify. 

As they followed the custodian through the grand-ducal Residenz atWeimar, March felt everywhere the strong wish of the prince who wasGoethe's friend to ally himself with literature, and to be human at leastin the humanities. He came honestly by his passion for poets; his motherhad known it in her time, and Weimar was the home of Wieland and ofHerder before the young Grand-Duke came back from his travels bringingGoethe with him, and afterwards attracting Schiller. The story of thatgreat epoch is all there in the Residenz, told as articulately as apalace can. 

There are certain Poets' Rooms, frescoed with illustrations of Goethe, Schiller, and Wieland; there is the room where Goethe and the Grand-Dukeused to play chess together; there is the conservatory opening from itwhere they liked to sit and chat; everywhere in the pictures andsculptures, the engraving and intaglios, are the witnesses of the tastesthey shared, the love they both had for Italy, and for beautiful Italianthings. The prince was not so great a prince but that he could verynearly be a man; the court was perhaps the most human court that everwas; the Grand-Duke and the grand poet were first boon companions, andthen monarch and minister working together for the good of the country;they were always friends, and yet, as the American saw in the light ofthe New World, which he carried with him, how far from friends! At bestit was make-believe, the make-believe of superiority and inferiority, themake-believe of master and man, which could only be the more painful andghastly for the endeavor of two generous spirits to reach and rescue eachother through the asphyxiating unreality; but they kept up the show ofequality faithfully to the end. Goethe was born citizen of a freerepublic, and his youth was nurtured in the traditions of liberty; he wasone of the greatest souls of any time, and he must have known theimpossibility of the thing they pretended; but he died and made no sign, and the poet's friendship with the prince has passed smoothly intohistory as one of the things that might really be. They worked and playedtogether; they dined and danced, they picnicked and poetized, each on hisown side of the impassable gulf; with an air of its not being there whichprobably did not deceive their contemporaries so much as posterity. 

A part of the palace was of course undergoing repair; and in the gallerybeyond the conservatory a company of workmen were sitting at a tablewhere they had spread their luncheon. They were somewhat subdued by theconsciousness of their august environment; but the sight of them wascharming; they gave a kindly interest to the place which it had wantedbefore; and which the Marches felt again in another palace where thecustodian showed them the little tin dishes and saucepans which theGerman Empress Augusta and her sisters played with when they werechildren. The sight of these was more affecting even than the witheredwreaths which they had left on the death-bed of their mother, and whichare still mouldering there. 

This was in the Belvedere, the country house on the height overlookingWeimar, where the grand-ducal family spend the month of May, and wherethe stranger finds himself amid overwhelming associations of Goethe, although the place is so full of relics and memorials of the owners. Itseemed in fact to be a storehouse for the wedding-presents of the wholeconnection, which were on show in every room; Mrs. March hardly knewwhether they heightened the domestic effect or took from it; but theyenabled her to verify with the custodian's help certain royalintermarriages which she had been in doubt about before. 

Her zeal for these made such favor with him that he did not spare them aportrait of all those which March hoped to escape; he passed them over, scarcely able to stand, to the gardener, who was to show them theopen-air theatre where Goethe used to take part in the plays. 

The Natur-Theater was of a classic ideal, realized in the trained vinesand clipped trees which formed the coulisses. There was a grassy spacefor the chorus and the commoner audience, and then a few semicirculargradines cut in the turf, one alcove another, where the more honoredspectators sat. Behind the seats were plinths bearing the busts ofGoethe, Schiller, Wieland, and Herder. It was all very pretty, and ifever the weather in Weimar was dry enough to permit a performance, itmust have been charming to see a play in that open day to which the dramais native, though in the late hours it now keeps in the thick air ofmodern theatres it has long forgotten the fact. It would be difficult tobe Greek under a German sky, even when it was not actually raining, butMarch held that with Goethe's help it might have been done at Weimar, andhis wife and he proved themselves such enthusiasts for the Natur-Theaterthat the walnut-faced old gardener who showed it put together a sheaf ofthe flowers that grew nearest it and gave them to Mrs. March for asouvenir. 

They went for a cup of tea to the cafe which looks, as from anothereyebrow of the hill, out over lovely little Weimar in the plain below. Ina moment of sunshine the prospect was very smiling; but their spiritssank over their tea when it came; they were at least sorry they had notasked for coffee. Most of the people about them were taking beer, including the pretty girls of a young ladies' school, who were there withtheir books and needle-work, in the care of one of the teachers, apparently for the afternoon. 

Mrs. March perceived that they were not so much engaged with their booksor their needle-work but they had eyes for other things, and she followedthe glances of the girls till they rested upon the people at a tablesomewhat obliquely to the left. These were apparently a mother anddaughter, and they were listening to a young man who sat with his back toMrs. March, and leaned low over the table talking to them. They were bothsmiling radiantly, and as the girl smiled she kept turning herself fromthe waist up, and slanting her face from this side to that, as if to makesure that every one saw her smiling. 

Mrs. March felt her husband's gaze following her own, and she had justtime to press her finger firmly on his arm and reduce his cry ofastonishment to the hoarse whisper in which he gasped, "Good gracious!It's the pivotal girl!"

At the same moment the girl rose with her mother, and with the young man, who had risen too, came directly toward the Marches on their way out ofthe place without noticing them, though Burnamy passed so near that Mrs. March could almost have touched him. 

She had just strength to say, "Well, my dear! That was the cut direct. "

She said this in order to have her husband reassure her. "Nonsense! Henever saw us. Why didn't you speak to him?"

"Speak to him? I never shall speak to him again. No! This is the last ofMr. Burnamy for me. I shouldn't have minded his not recognizing us, for, as you say, I don't believe he saw us; but if he could go back to such agirl as that, and flirt with her, after Miss Triscoe, that's all I wishto know of him. Don't you try to look him up, Basil! I'm glad-yes, I'mglad he doesn't know how Stoller has come to feel about him; he deservesto suffer, and I hope he'll keep on suffering: You were quite right, mydear--and it shows how true your instinct is in such things (I don't callit more than instinct)--not to tell him what Stoller said, and I don'twant you ever should. "

She had risen in her excitement, and was making off in such haste thatshe would hardly give him time to pay for their tea, as she pulled himimpatiently to their carriage. 

At last he got a chance to say, "I don't think I can quite promise that;my mind's been veering round in the other direction. I think I shall tellhim. "

"What! After you've seen him flirting with that girl? Very well, then, you won't, my dear; that's all! He's behaving very basely to Agatha. "

"What's his flirtation with all the girls in the universe to do with myduty to him? He has a right to know what Stoller thinks. And as to hisbehaving badly toward Miss Triscoe, how has he done it? So far as youknow, there is nothing whatever between them. She either refused himoutright, that last night in Carlsbad, or else she made impossibleconditions with him. Burnamy is simply consoling himself, and I don'tblame him. "

"Consoling himself with a pivotal girl!" cried Mrs. March. 

"Yes, with a pivotal girl. Her pivotality may be a nervous idiosyncrasy, or it may be the effect of tight lacing; perhaps she has to keep turningand twisting that way to get breath. But attribute the worst motive: sayit is to make people look at her! Well, Burnamy has a right to look withthe rest; and I am not going to renounce him because he takes refuge withone pretty girl from another. It's what men have been doing from thebeginning of time. "

"Oh, I dare say!"

"Men, " he went on, "are very delicately constituted; very peculiarly. They have been known to seek the society of girls in general, of anygirl, because some girl has made them happy; and when some girl has madethem unhappy, they are still more susceptible. Burnamy may be merelyamusing himself, or he may be consoling himself; but in either case Ithink the pivotal girl has as much right to him as Miss Triscoe. She hadhim first; and I'm all for her. "

LXI. 

Burnamy came away from seeing the pivotal girl and her mother off on thetrain which they were taking that evening for Frankfort and Hombourg, andstrolled back through the Weimar streets little at ease with himself. While he was with the girl and near her he had felt the attraction bywhich youth impersonally draws youth, the charm which mere maid has formere man; but once beyond the range of this he felt sick at heart andashamed. He was aware of having used her folly as an anodyne for the painwhich was always gnawing at him, and he had managed to forget it in herfolly, but now it came back, and the sense that he had been reckless ofher rights came with it. He had done his best to make her think him inlove with her, by everything but words; he wondered how he could be suchan ass, such a wicked ass, as to try making her promise to write to himfrom Frankfort; he wished never to see her again, and he wished stillless to hear from her. It was some comfort to reflect that she had notpromised, but it was not comfort enough to restore him to suchfragmentary self-respect as he had been enjoying since he parted withAgatha Triscoe in Carlsbad; he could not even get back to the resentmentwith which he had been staying himself somewhat before the pivotal girlunexpectedly appeared with her mother in Weimar. 

It was Sedan Day, but there was apparently no official observance of theholiday, perhaps because the Grand-Duke was away at the manoeuvres, withall the other German princes. Burnamy had hoped for some voluntaryexcitement among the people, at least enough to warrant him in making apaper about Sedan Day in Weimar, which he could sell somewhere; but thenight was falling, and there was still no sign of popular rejoicing overthe French humiliation twenty-eight years before, except in the multitudeof Japanese lanterns which the children were everywhere carrying at theends of sticks. Babies had them in their carriages, and the effect of thefloating lights in the winding, up-and-down-hill streets was charmingeven to Burnamy's lack-lustre eyes. He went by his hotel and on to a cafewith a garden, where there was a patriotic, concert promised; he suppedthere, and then sat dreamily behind his beer, while the music banged andbrayed round him unheeded. 

Presently he heard a voice of friendly banter saying in English, "May Isit at your table?" and he saw an ironical face looking down on him. "There doesn't seem any other place. "

"Why, Mr. March!" Burnamy sprang up and wrung the hand held out to him, but he choked with his words of recognition; it was so good to see thisfaithful friend again, though he saw him now as he had seen him last, just when he had so little reason to be proud of himself. 

March settled his person in the chair facing Burnamy, and then glancedround at the joyful jam of people eating and drinking, under a firmamentof lanterns. "This is pretty, " he said, "mighty pretty. I shall make Mrs. March sorry for not coming, when I go back. "

"Is Mrs. March--she is--with you--in Weimar?" Burnamy asked stupidly. 

March forbore to take advantage of him. "Oh, yes. We saw you out atBelvedere this afternoon. Mrs. March thought for a moment that you meantnot to see us. A woman likes to exercise her imagination in those littleflights. "

"I never dreamed of your being there--I never saw--" Burnamy began. 

"Of course not. Neither did Mrs. Etkins, nor Miss Etkins; she was lookingvery pretty. Have you been here some time?"

"Not long. A week or so. I've been at the parade at Wurzburg. "

"At Wurzburg! Ah, how little the world is, or how large Wurzburg is! Wewere there nearly a week, and we pervaded the place. But there was agreat crowd for you to hide in from us. What had I better take?" A waiterhad come up, and was standing at March's elbow. "I suppose I mustn't sithere without ordering something?"

"White wine and selters, " said Burnamy vaguely. 

"The very thing! Why didn't I think of it? It's a divine drink: itsatisfies without filling. I had it a night or two before we left home, in the Madison Square Roof Garden. Have you seen 'Every Other Week'lately?"

"No, " said Burnamy, with more spirit than he had yet shown. 

"We've just got our mail from Nuremberg. The last number has a poem in itthat I rather like. " March laughed to see the young fellow's face lightup with joyful consciousness. "Come round to my hotel, after you're tiredhere, and I'll let you see it. There's no hurry. Did you notice thelittle children with their lanterns, as you came along? It's the gentlesteffect that a warlike memory ever came to. The French themselves couldn'thave minded those innocents carrying those soft lights on the day oftheir disaster. You ought to get something out of that, and I've got asubject in trust for you from Rose Adding. He and his mother were atWurzburg; I'm sorry to say the poor little chap didn't seem very well. They've gone to Holland for the sea air. " March had been talking forquantity in compassion of the embarrassment in which Burnamy seemedbound; but he questioned how far he ought to bring comfort to the youngfellow merely because he liked him. So far as he could make out, Burnamyhad been doing rather less than nothing to retrieve himself since theyhad met; and it was by an impulse that he could not have logicallydefended to Mrs. March that he resumed. "We found another friend of yoursin Wurzburg: Mr. Stoller. "

"Mr. Stoller?" Burnamy faintly echoed. 

"Yes; he was there to give his daughters a holiday during the manoeuvres;and they made the most of it. He wanted us to go to the parade with hisfamily but we declined. The twins were pretty nearly the death of GeneralTriscoe. "

Again Burnamy echoed him. "General Triscoe?"

"Ah, yes: I didn't tell you. General Triscoe and his daughter had come onwith Mrs. Adding and Rose. Kenby--you remember Kenby, On theNorumbia?--Kenby happened to be there, too; we were quite a family party;and Stoller got the general to drive out to the manoeuvres with him andhis girls. "

Now that he was launched, March rather enjoyed letting himself go. He didnot know what he should say to Mrs. March when he came to confess havingtold Burnamy everything before she got a chance at him; he pushed onrecklessly, upon the principle, which probably will not hold in morals, that one may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. "I have a message foryou from Mr. Stoller. "

"For me?" Burnamy gasped. 

"I've been wondering how I should put it, for I hadn't expected to seeyou. But it's simply this: he wants you to know--and he seemed to want meto know--that he doesn't hold you accountable in the way he did. He'sthought it all over, and he's decided that he had no right to expect youto save him from his own ignorance where he was making a show ofknowledge. As he said, he doesn't choose to plead the baby act. He saysthat you're all right, and your place on the paper is open to you. "

Burnamy had not been very prompt before, but now he seemed braced forinstant response. "I think he's wrong, " he said, so harshly that thepeople at the next table looked round. "His feeling as he does hasnothing to do with the fact, and it doesn't let me out. "

March would have liked to take him in his arms; he merely said, "I thinkyou're quite right, as to that. But there's such a thing as forgiveness, you know. It doesn't change the nature of what you've done; but as far asthe sufferer from it is concerned, it annuls it. "

"Yes, I understand that. But I can't accept his forgiveness if I hatehim. "

"But perhaps you won't always hate him. Some day you may have a chance todo him a good turn. It's rather banale; but there doesn't seem any otherway. Well, I have given you his message. Are you going with me to getthat poem?"

When March had given Burnamy the paper at his hotel, and Burnamy had putit in his pocket, the young man said he thought he would take somecoffee, and he asked March to join him in the dining-room where they hadstood talking. 

"No, thank you, " said the elder, "I don't propose sitting up all night, and you'll excuse me if I go to bed now. It's a little informal to leavea guest--"

"You're not leaving a guest! I'm at home here. I'm staying in this hoteltoo. "

March said, "Oh!" and then he added abruptly, "Good-night, " and went upstairs under the fresco of the five poets. 

"Whom were you talking with below?" asked Mrs. March through the dooropening into his room from hers. 

"Burnamy, " he answered from within. "He's staying in this house. He letme know just as I was going to turn him out for the night. It's one ofthose little uncandors of his that throw suspicion on his honesty ingreat things. "

"Oh! Then you've been telling him, " she said, with a mental bound highabove and far beyond the point. 

"Everything. "

"About Stoller, too?"

"About Stoller and his daughters, and Mrs. Adding and Rose and Kenby andGeneral Triscoe--and Agatha. "

"Very well. That's what I call shabby. Don't ever talk to me again aboutthe inconsistencies of women. But now there's something perfectlyfearful. "

"What is it?"

"A letter from Miss Triscoe came after you were gone, asking us to findrooms in some hotel for her and her father to-morrow. He isn't well, andthey're coming. And I've telegraphed them to come here. Now what do yousay?"

LXII. 

They could see no way out of the trouble, and Mrs. March could not resignherself to it till her husband suggested that she should consider itprovidential. This touched the lingering superstition in which she hadbeen ancestrally taught to regard herself as a means, when in a verytight place, and to leave the responsibility with the moral government ofthe universe. As she now perceived, it had been the same as ordered thatthey should see Burnamy under such conditions in the afternoon that theycould not speak to him, and hear where he was staying; and in an inferiordegree it had been the same as ordered that March should see him in theevening and tell him everything, so that she should know just how to actwhen she saw him in the morning. If he could plausibly account for therenewal of his flirtation with Miss Elkins, or if he seemed generallyworthy apart from that, she could forgive him. 

It was so pleasant when he came in at breakfast with his well-rememberedsmile, that she did not require from him any explicit defence. While theytalked she was righting herself in an undercurrent of drama with MissTriscoe, and explaining to her that they could not possibly wait over forher and her father in Weimar, but must be off that day for Berlin, asthey had made all their plans. It was not easy, even in drama where onehas everything one's own way, to prove that she could not without impietyso far interfere with the course of Providence as to prevent MissTriscoe's coming with her father to the same hotel where Burnamy wasstaying. She contrived, indeed, to persuade her that she had not known hewas staying there when she telegraphed them where to come, and that inthe absence of any open confidence from Miss Triscoe she was not obligedto suppose that his presence would be embarrassing. 

March proposed leaving her with Burnamy while he went up into the townand interviewed the house of Schiller, which he had not done yet; and assoon as he got himself away she came to business, breaking altogetherfrom the inner drama with Miss Triscoe and devoting herself to Burnamy. They had already got so far as to have mentioned the meeting with theTriscoes in Wurzburg, and she said: "Did Mr. March tell you they werecoming here? Or, no! We hadn't heard then. Yes, they are comingto-morrow. They may be going to stay some time. She talked of Weimar whenwe first spoke of Germany on the ship. " Burnamy said nothing, and shesuddenly added, with a sharp glance, "They wanted us to get them rooms, and we advised their coming to this house. " He started verysatisfactorily, and "Do you think they would be comfortable, here?" shepursued. 

"Oh, yes, very. They can have my room; it's southeast; I shall be goinginto other quarters. " She did not say anything; and "Mrs. March, " hebegan again, "what is the use of my beating about the bush? You must knowwhat I went back to Carlsbad for, that night--"

"No one ever told--"

"Well, you must have made a pretty good guess. But it was a failure. Iought to have failed, and I did. She said that unless her father likedit--And apparently he hasn't liked it. " Burnamy smiled ruefully. 

"How do you know? She didn't know where you were!"

"She could have got word to me if she had had good news for me. They'veforwarded other letters from Pupp's. But it's all right; I had nobusiness to go back to Carlsbad. Of course you didn't know I was in thishouse when you told them to come; and I must clear out. I had betterclear out of Weimar, too. "

"No, I don't think so; I have no right to pry into your affairs, but--"

"Oh, they're wide enough open!"

"And you may have changed your mind. I thought you might, when I saw youyesterday at Belvedere--"

"I was only trying to make bad worse. "

"Then I think the situation has changed entirely through what Mr. Stollersaid to Mr. March. "

"I can't see how it has. I committed an act of shabby treachery, and I'mas much to blame as if he still wanted to punish me for it. "

"Did Mr. March say that to you?"

"No; I said that to Mr. March; and he couldn't answer it, and you can't. You're very good, and very kind, but you can't answer it. "

"I can answer it very well, " she boasted, but she could find nothingbetter to say than, "It's your duty to her to see her and let her know. "

"Doesn't she know already?"

"She has a right to know it from you. I think you are morbid, Mr. Burnamy. You know very well I didn't like your doing that to Mr. Stoller. I didn't say so at the time, because you seemed to feel it enoughyourself. But I did like your owning up to it, " and here Mrs. Marchthought it time to trot out her borrowed battle-horse again. "My husbandalways says that if a person owns up to an error, fully and faithfully, as you've always done, they make it the same in its consequences to themas if it had never been done. "

"Does Mr. March say that?" asked Burnamy with a relenting smile. 

"Indeed he does!"

Burnamy hesitated; then he asked, gloomily again:

"And what about the consequences to the other fellow?"

"A woman, " said Mrs. March, "has no concern with them. And besides, Ithink you've done all you could to save Mr. Stoller from theconsequences. "

"I haven't done anything. "

"No matter. You would if you could. I wonder, " she broke off, to preventhis persistence at a point where her nerves were beginning to give way, "what can be keeping Mr. March?"

Nothing much more important, it appeared later, than the pleasure ofsauntering through the streets on the way to the house of Schiller, andlooking at the pretty children going to school, with books under theirarms. It was the day for the schools to open after the long summervacation, and there was a freshness of expectation in the shining faceswhich, if it could not light up his own graybeard visage, could at leasttouch his heart:

When he reached the Schiller house he found that it was really not theSchiller house, but the Schiller flat, of three or four rooms, one flightup, whose windows look out upon the street named after the poet. Thewhole place is bare and clean; in one corner of the large room frontingthe street stands Schiller's writing-table, with his chair before it;with the foot extending toward this there stands, in another corner, thenarrow bed on which he died; some withered wreaths on the pillow frame apicture of his deathmask, which at first glance is like his dead facelying there. It is all rather tasteless, and all rather touching, and theplace with its meagre appointments, as compared with the rich Goethehouse, suggests that personal competition with Goethe in which Schilleris always falling into the second place. Whether it will be finally sowith him in literature it is too early to ask of time, and upon otherpoints eternity will not be interrogated. "The great, Goethe and the goodSchiller, " they remain; and yet, March reasoned, there was something goodin Goethe and something great, in Schiller. 

He was so full of the pathos of their inequality before the world that hedid not heed the warning on the door of the pastry-shop near the Schillerhouse, and on opening it he bedaubed his hand with the fresh paint on it. He was then in such a state, that he could not bring his mind to bearupon the question of which cakes his wife would probably prefer, and hestood helplessly holding up his hand till the good woman behind thecounter discovered his plight, and uttered a loud cry of compassion. Sheran and got a wet napkin, which she rubbed with soap, and then sheinstructed him by word and gesture to rub his hand upon it, and she didnot leave him till his rescue was complete. He let her choose a varietyof the cakes for him, and came away with a gay paper bag full of them, and with the feeling that he had been in more intimate relations with thelife of Weimar than travellers are often privileged to be. He argued fromthe instant and intelligent sympathy of the pastry woman a high grade ofculture in all classes; and he conceived the notion of pretending to Mrs. March that he had got these cakes from, a descendant of Schiller. 

His deceit availed with her for the brief moment in which she always, after so many years' experience of his duplicity, believed anything hetold her. They dined merrily together at their hotel, and then Burnamycame down to the station with them and was very comfortable to March inhelping him to get their tickets and their baggage registered. The trainwhich was to take them to Halle, where they were to change for Berlin, was rather late, and they had but ten minutes after it came in before itwould start again. Mrs. March was watching impatiently at the window ofthe waiting-room for the dismounting passengers to clear the platform andallow the doors to be opened; suddenly she gave a cry, and turned and raninto the passage by which the new arrivals were pouring out toward thesuperabundant omnibuses. March and Burnamy, who had been talking apart, mechanically rushed after her and found her kissing Miss Triscoe andshaking hands with the general amidst a tempest of questions and answers, from which it appeared that the Triscoes had got tired of staying inWurzburg, and had simply come on to Weimar a day sooner than they hadintended. 

The general was rather much bundled up for a day which was mild for aGerman summer day, and he coughed out an explanation that he had taken anabominable cold at that ridiculous parade, and had not shaken it off yet. He had a notion that change of air would be better for him; it could notbe worse. 

He seemed a little vague as to Burnamy, rather than inimical. While theladies were still talking eagerly together in proffer and acceptance ofMrs. March's lamentations that she should be going away just as MissTriscoe was coming, he asked if the omnibus for their hotel was there. Heby no means resented Burnamy's assurance that it was, and he did notrefuse to let him order their baggage, little and large, loaded upon it. By the time this was done, Mrs. March and Miss Triscoe had so fardetached themselves from each other that they could separate after onemore formal expression of regret and forgiveness. With a lament intowhich she poured a world of inarticulate emotions, Mrs. March wrenchedherself from the place, and suffered herself, to be pushed toward hertrain. But with the last long look which she cast over her shoulder, before she vanished into the waiting-room, she saw Miss Triscoe andBurnamy transacting the elaborate politenesses of amiable strangers withregard to the very small bag which the girl had in her hand. He succeededin relieving her of it; and then he led the way out of the station on theleft of the general, while Miss Triscoe brought up the rear. 

LXIII. 

From the window of the train as it drew out Mrs. March tried for aglimpse of the omnibus in which her proteges were now rolling awaytogether. As they were quite out of sight in the omnibus, which wasitself out of sight, she failed, but as she fell back against her seatshe treated the recent incident with a complexity and simultaneity ofwhich no report can give an idea. At the end one fatal convictionremained: that in everything she had said she had failed to explain toMiss Triscoe how Burnamy happened to be in Weimar and how he happened tobe there with them in the station. She required March to say how she hadoverlooked the very things which she ought to have mentioned first, andwhich she had on the point of her tongue the whole time. She went overthe entire ground again to see if she could discover the reason why shehad made such an unaccountable break, and it appeared that she was led toit by his rushing after her with Burnamy before she had had a chance tosay a word about him; of course she could not say anything in hispresence. This gave her some comfort, and there was consolation in thefact that she had left them together without the least intention orconnivance, and now, no matter what happened, she could not accuseherself, and he could not accuse her of match-making. 

He said that his own sense of guilt was so great that he should not dreamof accusing her of anything except of regret that now she could neverclaim the credit of bringing the lovers together under circumstances sofavorable. As soon as they were engaged they could join in renouncing herwith a good conscience, and they would probably make this the basis oftheir efforts to propitiate the general. 

She said she did not care, and with the mere removal of the lovers inspace, her interest in them began to abate. They began to be of a minorimportance in the anxieties of the change of trains at Halle, and in theexcitement of settling into the express from Frankfort there were momentswhen they were altogether forgotten. The car was of almost Americanlength, and it ran with almost American smoothness; when the conductorcame and collected an extra fare for their seats, the Marches felt thatif the charge had been two dollars instead of two marks they would havehad every advantage of American travel. 

On the way to Berlin the country was now fertile and flat, and nowsterile and flat; near the capital the level sandy waste spread almost toits gates. The train ran quickly through the narrow fringe of suburbs, and then they were in one of those vast Continental stations which putour outdated depots to shame. The good 'traeger' who took possession ofthem and their hand-bags, put their boxes on a baggage-bearing drosky, and then got them another drosky for their personal transportation. Thiswas a drosky of the first-class, but they would not have thought it so, either from the vehicle itself, or from the appearance of the driver andhis horses. The public carriages of Germany are the shabbiest in theworld; at Berlin the horses look like old hair trunks and the driverslike their moth-eaten contents. 

The Marches got no splendor for the two prices they paid, and theirapproach to their hotel on Unter den Linden was as unimpressive as theignoble avenue itself. It was a moist, cold evening, and the mean, tiresome street, slopped and splashed under its two rows of small trees, to which the thinning leaves clung like wet rags, between long lines ofshops and hotels which had neither the grace of Paris nor the grandiosityof New York. March quoted in bitter derision:

 "Bees, bees, was it your hydromel, Under the Lindens?"

and his wife said that if Commonwealth Avenue in Boston could be imaginedwith its trees and without their beauty, flanked by the architecture ofSixth Avenue, with dashes of the west side of Union Square, that would bethe famous Unter den Linden, where she had so resolutely decided thatthey would stay while in Berlin. 

They had agreed upon the hotel, and neither could blame the other becauseit proved second-rate in everything but its charges. They ate a poorishtable d'hote dinner in such low spirits that March had no heart to get arise from his wife by calling her notice to the mouse which fed upon thecrumbs about their feet while they dined. Their English-speaking waitersaid that it was a very warm evening, and they never knew whether thiswas because he was a humorist, or because he was lonely and wished totalk, or because it really was a warm evening, for Berlin. When they hadfinished, they went out and drove about the greater part of the eveninglooking for another hotel, whose first requisite should be that it wasnot on Unter den Linden. What mainly determined Mrs. March in favor ofthe large, handsome, impersonal place they fixed upon was the fact thatit was equipped for steam-heating; what determined March was the factthat it had a passenger-office where when he wished to leave, he couldbuy his railroad tickets and have his baggage checked without themaddening anxiety, of doing it at the station. But it was precisely inthese points that the hotel which admirably fulfilled its other functionsfell short. The weather made a succession of efforts throughout theirstay to clear up cold; it merely grew colder without clearing up, butthis seemed to offer no suggestion of steam for heating their bleakapartment and the chilly corridors to the management. With the help of alarge lamp which they kept burning night and day they got the temperatureof their rooms up to sixty; there was neither stove nor fireplace, thecold electric bulbs diffused a frosty glare; and in the vast, statelydining-room with its vaulted roof, there was nothing to warm them buttheir plates, and the handles of their knives and forks, which, by amysterious inspiration, were always hot. When they were ready to go, March experienced from the apathy of the baggage clerk and the reluctanceof the porters a more piercing distress than any he had known at therailroad stations; and one luckless valise which he ordered sent afterhim by express reached his bankers in Paris a fortnight overdue, with anaccumulation of charges upon it outvaluing the books which it contained. 

But these were minor defects in an establishment which had many merits, and was mainly of the temperament and intention of the large Englishrailroad hotels. They looked from their windows down into a gardenedsquare, peopled with a full share of the superabounding statues of Berlinand frequented by babies and nurse maids who seemed not to mind the coldany more than the stone kings and generals. The aspect of this square, like the excellent cooking of the hotel and the architecture of theimperial capital, suggested the superior civilization of Paris. Even therows of gray houses and private palaces of Berlin are in the Frenchtaste, which is the only taste there is in Berlin. The suggestion ofParis is constant, but it is of Paris in exile, and without the chicwhich the city wears in its native air. The crowd lacks this as much asthe architecture and the sculpture; there is no distinction among the menexcept for now and then a military figure, and among the women no stylesuch as relieves the commonplace rash of the New York streets. TheBerliners are plain and ill dressed, both men and women, and even thelittle children are plain. Every one is ill dressed, but no one isragged, and among the undersized homely folk of the lower classes thereis no such poverty-stricken shabbiness as shocks and insults the sight inNew York. That which distinctly recalls our metropolis is the loftypassage of the elevated trains intersecting the prospectives of manystreets; but in Berlin the elevated road is carried on massive brickarchways and not lifted upon gay, crazy iron ladders like ours. 

When you look away from this, and regard Berlin on its aesthetic, sideyou are again in that banished Paris, whose captive art-soul is made toserve, so far as it may be enslaved to such an effect, in the celebrationof the German triumph over France. Berlin has never the presence of agreat capital, however, in spite of its perpetual monumental insistence. There is no streaming movement in broad vistas; the dull lookingpopulation moves sluggishly; there is no show of fine equipages. Theprevailing tone of the city and the sky is gray; but under the cloudyheaven there is no responsive Gothic solemnity in the architecture. Thereare hints of the older German cities in some of the remote and observestreets, but otherwise all is as new as Boston, which in fact the actualBerlin hardly antedates. 

There are easily more statues in Berlin than in any other city in theworld, but they only unite in failing to give Berlin an artistic air. They stand in long rows on the cornices; they crowd the pediments; theypoise on one leg above domes and arches; they shelter themselves inniches; they ride about on horseback; they sit or lounge on streetcorners or in garden walks; all with a mediocrity in the older sort whichfails of any impression. If they were only furiously baroque they wouldbe something, and it may be from a sense of this that there is aself-assertion in the recent sculptures, which are always patriotic, morenoisy and bragging than anything else in perennial brass. This offensiveart is the modern Prussian avatar of the old German romantic spirit, andbears the same relation to it that modern romanticism in literature bearsto romance. It finds its apotheosis in the monument to Kaiser Wilhelm I. , a vast incoherent group of swelling and swaggering bronze, commemoratingthe victory of the first Prussian Emperor in the war with the last FrenchEmperor, and avenging the vanquished upon the victors by its ugliness. The ungainly and irrelevant assemblage of men and animals backs away fromthe imperial palace, and saves itself too soon from plunging over theborder of a canal behind it, not far from Rauch's great statue of thegreat Frederic. To come to it from the simplicity and quiet of that noblework is like passing from some exquisite masterpiece of naturalisticacting to the rant and uproar of melodrama; and the Marches stood stunnedand bewildered by its wild explosions. 

When they could escape they found themselves so convenient to theimperial palace that they judged best to discharge at once the obligationto visit it which must otherwise weigh upon them. They entered the courtwithout opposition from the sentinel, and joined other strangersstraggling instinctively toward a waiting-room in one corner of thebuilding, where after they had increased to some thirty, a custodian tookcharge of them, and led them up a series of inclined plains of brick tothe state apartments. In the antechamber they found a provision ofimmense felt over-shoes which they were expected to put on for theirpassage over the waxed marquetry of the halls. These roomy slippers weredesigned for the accommodation of the native boots; and upon the mixedcompany of foreigners the effect was in the last degree humiliating. Thewomen's skirts some what hid their disgrace, but the men were openly putto shame, and they shuffled forward with their bodies at a convenientincline like a company of snow-shoers. In the depths of his own abasementMarch heard a female voice behind him sighing in American accents, "Tothink I should be polishing up these imperial floors with my republicanfeet!"

The protest expressed the rebellion which he felt mounting in his ownheart as they advanced through the heavily splendid rooms, in thehistorical order of the family portraits recording the rise of thePrussian sovereigns from Margraves to Emperors. He began to realize herethe fact which grew open him more and more that imperial Germany is notthe effect of a popular impulse but of a dynastic propensity. There isnothing original in the imperial palace, nothing national; it embodiesand proclaims a powerful personal will, and in its adaptations of Frenchart it appeals to no emotion in the German witness nobler than his pridein the German triumph over the French in war. March found it tiresomebeyond the tiresome wont of palaces, and he gladly shook off the sense ofit with his felt shoes. "Well, " he confided to his wife when they werefairly out-of-doors, "if Prussia rose in the strength of silence, asCarlyle wants us to believe, she is taking it out in talk now, and talltalk. "

"Yes, isn't she!" Mrs. March assented, and with a passionate desire forexcess in a bad thing, which we all know at times, she looked eagerlyabout her for proofs of that odious militarism of the empire, which oughtto have been conspicuous in the imperial capital; but possibly becausethe troops were nearly all away at the manoeuvres, there were hardly morein the streets than she had sometimes seen in Washington. Again theGerman officers signally failed to offer her any rudeness when she metthem on the side-walks. There were scarcely any of them, and perhaps thatmight have been the reason why they were not more aggressive; but a wholecompany of soldiers marching carelessly up to the palace from theBrandenburg gate, without music, or so much style as our own militiaoften puts on, regarded her with inoffensive eyes so far as they lookedat her. She declared that personally there was nothing against thePrussians; even when in uniform they were kindly and modest-looking men;it was when they got up on pedestals, in bronze or marble, that they, began to bully and to brag. 

LXIV. 

The dinner which the Marches got at a restaurant on Unter den Lindenalmost redeemed the avenue from the disgrace it had fallen into withthem. It was, the best meal they had yet eaten in Europe, and as to factand form was a sort of compromise between a French dinner and an Englishdinner which they did not hesitate to pronounce Prussian. The waiter whoserved it was a friendly spirit, very sensible of their intelligentappreciation of the dinner; and from him they formed a more respectfulopinion of Berlin civilization than they had yet held. After the mannerof strangers everywhere they judged the country they were visiting fromsuch of its inhabitants as chance brought them in contact with; and itwould really be a good thing for nations that wish to stand well with theworld at large to look carefully to the behavior of its cabmen and carconductors, its hotel clerks and waiters, its theatre-ticket sellers andushers, its policemen and sacristans, its landlords and salesmen; for bythese rather than by its society women and its statesmen and divines, isit really judged in the books of travellers; some attention also shouldbe paid to the weather, if the climate is to be praised. In the railroadcafe at Potsdam there was a waiter so rude to the Marches that if theyhad not been people of great strength of character he would have undonethe favorable impression the soldiers and civilians of Berlin generallyhad been at such pains to produce in them; and throughout the week ofearly September which they passed there, it rained so much and sobitterly, it was so wet and so cold, that they might have come awaythinking it's the worst climate in the world, if it had not been for aman whom they saw in one of the public gardens pouring a heavy streamfrom his garden hose upon the shrubbery already soaked and shuddering inthe cold. But this convinced them that they were suffering from weatherand not from the climate, which must really be hot and dry; and they wenthome to their hotel and sat contentedly down in a temperature of sixtydegrees. The weather, was not always so bad; one day it was dry coldinstead of wet cold, with rough, rusty clouds breaking a blue sky;another day, up to eleven in the forenoon, it was like Indian summer;then it changed to a harsh November air; and then it relented and endedso mildly, that they hired chairs in the place before the imperial palacefor five pfennigs each, and sat watching the life before them. Motherlywomen-folk were there knitting; two American girls in chairs near themchatted together; some fine equipages, the only ones they saw in Berlin, went by; a dog and a man (the wife who ought to have been in harness wasprobably sick, and the poor fellow was forced to take her place) passeddragging a cart; some schoolboys who had hung their satchels upon the lowrailing were playing about the base of the statue of King William III. Inthe joyous freedom of German childhood. 

They seemed the gayer for the brief moments of sunshine, but to theAmericans, who were Southern by virtue of their sky, the brightness had asense of lurking winter in it, such as they remembered feeling on a sunnyday in Quebec. The blue heaven looked sad; but they agreed that it fitlyroofed the bit of old feudal Berlin which forms the most ancient wing ofthe Schloss. This was time-blackened and rude, but at least it did nottry to be French, and it overhung the Spree which winds through the cityand gives it the greatest charm it has. In fact Berlin, which isotherwise so grandiose without grandeur and so severe withoutimpressiveness, is sympathetic wherever the Spree opens it to the sky. The stream is spanned by many bridges, and bridges cannot well beunpicturesque, especially if they have statues to help them out. TheSpree abounds in bridges, and it has a charming habit of slow hay-ladenbarges; at the landings of the little passenger-steamers which ply uponit there are cafes and summer-gardens, and these even in the inclementair of September suggested a friendly gayety. 

The Marches saw it best in the tour of the elevated road in Berlin whichthey made in an impassioned memory of the elevated road in New York. Thebrick viaducts which carry this arch the Spree again and again in theircourse through and around the city, but with never quite such spectaculareffects as our spidery tressels, achieve. The stations are pleasant, sometimes with lunch-counters and news-stands, but have not thecomic-opera-chalet prettiness of ours, and are not so frequent. The roadis not so smooth, the cars not so smooth-running or so swift. On theother hand they are comfortably cushioned, and they are neverovercrowded. The line is at times above, at times below the houses, andat times on a level with them, alike in city and in suburbs. The trainwhirled out of thickly built districts, past the backs of the old houses, into outskirts thinly populated, with new houses springing up withoutorder or continuity among the meadows and vegetable-gardens, and alongthe ready-made, elm-planted avenues, where wooden fences divided thevacant lots. Everywhere the city was growing out over the country, inblocks and detached edifices of limestone, sandstone, red and yellowbrick, larger or smaller, of no more uniformity than our suburbandwellings, but never of their ugliness or lawless offensiveness. 

In an effort for the intimate life of the country March went twosuccessive mornings for his breakfast to the Cafe Bauer, which has someadmirable wall-printings, and is the chief cafe on Unter den Linden; buton both days there were more people in the paintings than out of them. The second morning the waiter who took his order recognized him andasked, "Wie gestern?" and from this he argued an affectionate constancyin the Berliners, and a hospitable observance of the tastes of strangers. At his bankers, on the other hand, the cashier scrutinized his signatureand remarked that it did not look like the signature in his letter ofcredit, and then he inferred a suspicious mind in the moneyed classes ofPrussia; as he had not been treated with such unkind doubt by Hebrewbankers anywhere, he made a mental note that the Jews were politer thanthe Christians in Germany. In starting for Potsdam he asked a traegerwhere the Potsdam train was and the man said, "Dat train dare, " and incoming back he helped a fat old lady out of the car, and she thanked himin English. From these incidents, both occurring the same day in the sameplace, the inference of a widespread knowledge of our language in allclasses of the population was inevitable. 

In this obvious and easy manner he studied contemporary civilization inthe capital. He even carried his researches farther, and went one rainyafternoon to an exhibition of modern pictures in a pavilion of theThiergarten, where from the small attendance he inferred an indifferenceto the arts which he would not ascribe to the weather. One evening at asummer theatre where they gave the pantomime of the 'Puppenfee' and theoperetta of 'Hansel and Gretel', he observed that the greater part of theaudience was composed of nice plain young girls and children, and henoted that there was no sort of evening dress; from the large number ofAmericans present he imagined a numerous colony in Berlin, where theymast have an instinctive sense of their co-nationality, since one of themin the stress of getting his hat and overcoat when they all came out, confidently addressed him in English. But he took stock of hisimpressions with his wife, and they seemed to him so few, after all, thathe could not resist a painful sense of isolation in the midst of theenvironment. 

They made a Sunday excursion to the Zoological Gardens in theThiergarten, with a large crowd of the lower classes, but though they hada great deal of trouble in getting there by the various kinds ofhorsecars and electric cars, they did not feel that they had got near tothe popular life. They endeavored for some sense of Berlin society bydriving home in a drosky, and on the way they passed rows of beautifulhouses, in French and Italian taste, fronting the deep, damp green parkfrom the Thiergartenstrasse, in which they were confident cultivated anddelightful people lived; but they remained to the last with nothing buttheir unsupported conjecture. 

LXV. 

Their excursion to Potsdam was the cream of their sojourn in Berlin. Theychose for it the first fair morning, and they ran out over the flat sandyplains surrounding the capital, and among the low hills surroundingPotsdam before it actually began to rain. 

They wished immediately to see Sans Souci for the great Frederick's sake, and they drove through a lively shower to the palace, where they waitedwith a horde of twenty-five other tourists in a gusty colonnade beforethey were led through Voltaire's room and Frederick's death chamber. 

The French philosopher comes before the Prussian prince at Sans Soucieven in the palatial villa which expresses the wilful caprice of thegreat Frederick as few edifices have embodied the whims or tastes oftheir owners. The whole affair is eighteenth-century French, as theGermans conceived it. The gardened terrace from which the low, one-storybuilding, thickly crusted with baroque sculptures, looks down into amany-colored parterre, was luxuriantly French, and sentimentally Frenchthe colonnaded front opening to a perspective of artificial ruins, withbroken pillars lifting a conscious fragment of architrave against thesky. Within, all again was French in the design, the decoration and thefurnishing. At that time there, was in fact no other taste, andFrederick, who despised and disused his native tongue, was resolved uponFrench taste even in his intimate companionship. The droll story of hiscoquetry with the terrible free spirit which he got from France to be hisguest is vividly reanimated at Sans Souci, where one breathes the veryair in which the strangely assorted companions lived, and in which theyparted so soon to pursue each other with brutal annoyance on one side, and with merciless mockery on the other. Voltaire was long ago revengedupon his host for all the indignities he suffered from him in theircomedy; he left deeply graven upon Frederick's fame the trace of thoselacerating talons which he could strike to the quick; and it is thesingular effect of this scene of their brief friendship that one feelsthere the pre-eminence of the wit in whatever was most important tomankind. 

The rain had lifted a little and the sun shone out on the bloom of thelovely parterre where the Marches profited by a smiling moment to wanderamong the statues and the roses heavy with the shower. Then they walkedback to their carriage and drove to the New Palace, which expresses indiffering architectural terms the same subjection to an alien ideal ofbeauty. It is thronged without by delightfully preposterous rococcostatues, and within it is rich in all those curiosities and memorials ofroyalty with which palaces so well know how to fatigue the flesh andspirit of their visitors. 

The Marches escaped from it all with sighs and groans of relief, andbefore they drove off to see the great fountain of the Orangeries, theydedicated a moment of pathos to the Temple of Friendship which Frederickbuilt in memory of unhappy Wilhelmina of Beyreuth, the sister he loved inthe common sorrow of their wretched home, and neglected when he came tohis kingdom. It is beautiful in its rococco way, swept up to on itsterrace by most noble staircases, and swaggered over by baroqueallegories of all sorts: Everywhere the statues outnumbered the visitors, who may have been kept away by the rain; the statues naturally did notmind it. 

Sometime in the midst of their sight-seeing the Marches had dinner in amildewed restaurant, where a compatriotic accent caught their ear in avoice saying to the waiter, "We are in a hurry. " They looked round andsaw that it proceeded from the pretty nose of a young American girl, whosat with a party of young American girls at a neighboring table. Thenthey perceived that all the people in that restaurant were Americans, mostly young girls, who all looked as if they were in a hurry. Butneither their beauty nor their impatience had the least effect with thewaiter, who prolonged the dinner at his pleasure, and alarmed the Marcheswith the misgiving that they should not have time for the final palace ontheir list. 

This was the palace where the father of Frederick, the mad old FrederickWilliam, brought up his children with that severity which Solomon urgedbut probably did not practise. It is a vast place, but they had time forit all, though the custodian made the most of them as the latest comersof the day, and led them through it with a prolixity as great as theirwaiter's. He was a most friendly custodian, and when he found that theyhad some little notion of what they wanted to see, he mixed zeal with hispatronage, and in a manner made them his honored guests. They saweverything but the doorway where the faithful royal father used to lie inwait for his children and beat them, princes and princesses alike, withhis knobby cane as they came through. They might have seen this doorwaywithout knowing it; but from the window overlooking the parade-groundwhere his family watched the manoeuvres of his gigantic grenadiers, theymade sure of just such puddles as Frederick William forced his family tosit with their feet in, while they dined alfresco on pork and cabbage;and they visited the room of the Smoking Parliament where he ruled hisconvives with a rod of iron, and made them the victims of his bad jokes. The measuring-board against which he took the stature of his tallgrenadiers is there, and one room is devoted to those masterpieces whichhe used to paint in the agonies of gout. His chef d'oeuvre contains afigure with two left feet, and there seemed no reason why it might not. Have had three. In another room is a small statue of Carlyle, who did somuch to rehabilitate the house which the daughter of it, Wilhelmina, didso much to demolish in the regard of men. 

The palace is now mostly kept for guests, and there is a chamber whereNapoleon slept, which is not likely to be occupied soon by any otherself-invited guest of his nation. It is perhaps to keep the princes ofEurope humble that hardly a palace on the Continent is without thechamber of this adventurer, who, till he stooped to be like them, waseasily their master. Another democracy had here recorded its invasion inthe American stoves which the custodian pointed out in the corridor whenMrs. March, with as little delay as possible, had proclaimed theircountry. The custodian professed an added respect for them from the fact, and if he did not feel it, no doubt he merited the drink money which theylavished on him at parting. 

Their driver also was a congenial spirit, and when he let them out of hiscarriage at the station, he excused the rainy day to them. He was a merryfellow beyond the wont of his nation, and he-laughed at the bad weather, as if it had been a good joke on them. 

His gayety, and the red sunset light, which shone on the stems of thepines on the way back to Berlin, contributed to the content in which theyreviewed their visit to Potsdam. They agreed that the place was perfectlycharming, and that it was incomparably expressive of kingly will andpride. These had done there on the grand scale what all the Germanprinces and princelings had tried to do in imitation and emulation ofFrench splendor. In Potsdam the grandeur, was not a historical growth asat Versailles, but was the effect of family genius, in which there wasoften the curious fascination of insanity. 

They felt this strongly again amidst the futile monuments of theHohenzollern Museum, in Berlin, where all the portraits, effigies, personal belongings and memorials of that gifted, eccentric race aregathered and historically disposed. The princes of the mighty line whostand out from the rest are Frederick the Great and his infuriate. Father; and in the waxen likeness of the son, a small thin figure, terribly spry, and a face pitilessly alert, appears something of themadness which showed in the life of the sire. 

They went through many rooms in which the memorials of the kings andqueens, the emperors and empresses were carefully ordered, and felt nokindness except before the relics relating to the Emperor Frederick andhis mother. In the presence of the greatest of the dynasty theyexperienced a kind of terror which March expressed, when they were safelyaway, in the confession of his joy that those people were dead. 

LXVI. 

The rough weather which made Berlin almost uninhabitable to Mrs. Marchhad such an effect with General Triscoe at Weimar that under the ordersof an English-speaking doctor he retreated from it altogether and went tobed. Here he escaped the bronchitis which had attacked him, and hisconvalesence left him so little to complain of that he could not alwayskeep his temper. In the absence of actual offence, either from hisdaughter or from Burnamy, his sense of injury took a retroactive form; itcentred first in Stoller and the twins; then it diverged toward RoseAdding, his mother and Kenby, and finally involved the Marches in thesame measure of inculpation; for they had each and all had part, directlyor indirectly, in the chances that brought on his cold. 

He owed to Burnamy the comfort of the best room in the hotel, and he wasconstantly dependent upon his kindness; but he made it evident that hedid not over-value Burnamy's sacrifice and devotion, and that it was notan unmixed pleasure, however great a convenience, to have him about. Ingiving up his room, Burnamy had proposed going out of the hotelaltogether; but General Triscoe heard of this with almost as greatvexation as he had accepted the room. He besought him not to go, but soungraciously that his daughter was ashamed, and tried to atone for hismanner by the kindness of her own. 

Perhaps General Triscoe would not have been without excuse if he were noteager to have her share with destitute merit the fortune which she hadhitherto shared only with him. He was old, and certain luxuries hadbecome habits if not necessaries with him. Of course he did not say thisto himself; and still less did he say it to her. But he let her see thathe did not enjoy the chance which had thrown them again in such closerelations with Burnamy, and he did pot hide his belief that the Marcheswere somehow to blame for it. This made it impossible for her to write atonce to Mrs. March as she had promised; but she was determined that itshould not make her unjust to Burnamy. She would not avoid him; she wouldnot let anything that had happened keep her from showing that she felthis kindness and was glad of his help. 

Of course they knew no one else in Weimar, and his presence merely as afellow-countryman would have been precious. He got them a doctor, againstGeneral Triscoe's will; he went for his medicines; he lent him books andpapers; he sat with him and tried to amuse him. But with the girl heattempted no return to the situation at Carlsbad; there is nothing likethe delicate pride of a young man who resolves to forego unfair advantagein love. 

The day after their arrival, when her father was making up for the sleephe had lost by night, she found herself alone in the little reading-roomof the hotel with Burnamy for the first time, and she said: "I supposeyou must have been all over Weimar by this time. "

"Well, I've been here, off and on, almost a month. It's an interestingplace. There's a good deal of the old literary quality left. "

"And you enjoy that! I saw"--she added this with a little unnecessaryflush--"your poem in the paper you lent papa. "

"I suppose I ought to have kept that back. But I couldn't. " He laughed, and she said:

"You must find a great deal of inspiration in such a literary place. "

"It isn't lying about loose, exactly. " Even in the serious and perplexingsituation in which he found himself he could not help being amused withher unliterary notions of literature, her conventional and commonplaceconceptions of it. They had their value with him as those of a morefashionable world than his own, which he believed was somehow a greaterworld. At the same time he believed that she was now interposing thembetween the present and the past, and forbidding with them any return tothe mood of their last meeting in Carlsbad. He looked at her ladylikecomposure and unconsciousness, and wondered if she could be the sameperson and the same person as they who lost themselves in the crowd thatnight and heard and said words palpitant with fate. Perhaps there hadbeen no such words; perhaps it was all a hallucination. He must leave herto recognize that it was reality; till she did so, he felt bitterly thatthere was nothing for him but submission and patience; if she never didso, there was nothing for him but acquiescence. 

In this talk and in the talks they had afterwards she seemed willingenough to speak of what had happened since: of coming on to Wurzburg withthe Addings and of finding the Marches there; of Rose's collapse, and ofhis mother's flight seaward with him in the care of Kenby, who was sofortunately going to Holland, too. He on his side told her of going toWurzburg for the manoeuvres, and they agreed that it was very strangethey had not met. 

She did not try to keep their relations from taking the domesticcharacter which was inevitable, and it seemed to him that this in itselfwas significant of a determination on her part that was fatal to hishopes. With a lover's indefinite power of blinding himself to what isbefore his eyes, he believed that if she had been more diffident of him, more uneasy in his presence, he should have had more courage; but for herto breakfast unafraid with him, to meet him at lunch and dinner in thelittle dining-room where they were often the only guests, and always theonly English-speaking guests, was nothing less than prohibitive. 

In the hotel service there was one of those men who are porters in thisworld, but will be angels in the next, unless the perfect goodness oftheir looks, the constant kindness of their acts, belies them. TheMarches had known and loved the man in their brief stay, and he had beenthe fast friend of Burnamy from the moment they first saw each other atthe station. He had tenderly taken possession of General Triscoe on hisarrival, and had constituted himself the nurse and keeper of theirascible invalid, in the intervals of going to the trains, with a zealthat often relieved his daughter and Burnamy. The general in factpreferred him to either, and a tacit custom grew up by which when Augustknocked at his door, and offered himself in his few words of serviceableEnglish, that one of them who happened to be sitting with the generalgave way, and left him in charge. The retiring watcher was then apt toencounter the other watcher on the stairs, or in the reading-room, or inthe tiny, white-pebbled door-yard at a little table in the shade of thewooden-tubbed evergreens. From the habit of doing this they one daysuddenly formed the habit of going across the street to that gardenedhollow before and below the Grand-Ducal Museum. There was here a bench inthe shelter of some late-flowering bush which the few other frequentersof the place soon recognized as belonging to the young strangers, so thatthey would silently rise and leave it to them when they saw them coming. Apparently they yielded not only to their right, but to a certainauthority which resides in lovers, and which all other men, andespecially all other women, like to acknowledge and respect. 

In the absence of any civic documents bearing upon the affair it isdifficult to establish the fact that this was the character in whichAgatha and Burnamy were commonly regarded by the inhabitants of Weimar. But whatever their own notion of their relation was, if it was not thatof a Brant and a Brautigam, the people of Weimar would have been puzzledto say what it was. It was known that the gracious young lady's father, who would naturally have accompanied them, was sick, and in the fact thatthey were Americans much extenuation was found for whatever wasphenomenal in their unencumbered enjoyment of each other's society. 

If their free American association was indistinguishably like the peasantinformality which General Triscoe despised in the relations of Kenby andMrs. Adding, it is to be said in his excuse that he could not be fullycognizant of it, in the circumstances, and so could do nothing to preventit. His pessimism extended to his health; from the first he believedhimself worse than the doctor thought him, and he would have had someother physician if he had not found consolation in their difference ofopinion and the consequent contempt which he was enabled to cherish forthe doctor in view of the man's complete ignorance of the case. In proofof his own better understanding of it, he remained in bed some time afterthe doctor said he might get up. 

Nearly ten days had passed before he left his room, and it was not tillthen that he clearly saw how far affairs had gone with his daughter andBurnamy, though even then his observance seemed to have anticipatedtheirs. He found them in a quiet acceptance of the fortune which hadbrought them together, so contented that they appeared to ask nothingmore of it. The divine patience and confidence of their youth mightsometimes have had almost the effect of indifference to a witness who hadseen its evolution from the moods of the first few days of their reunionin Weimar. To General Triscoe, however, it looked like an understandingwhich had been made without reference to his wishes, and had not beendirectly brought to his knowledge. 

"Agatha, " he said, after due note of a gay contest between her andBurnamy over the pleasure and privilege of ordering his supper sent tohis room when he had gone back to it from his first afternoon in the openair, "how long is that young man going to stay in Weimar?"

"Why, I don't know!" she answered, startled from her work of beating thesofa pillows into shape, and pausing with one of them in her hand. "Inever asked him. " She looked down candidly into his face where he sat inan easy-chair waiting for her arrangement of the sofa. "What makes youask?"

He answered with another question. "Does he know that we had thought ofstaying here?"

"Why, we've always talked of that, haven't we? Yes, he knows it. Didn'tyou want him to know it, papa? You ought to have begun on the ship, then. Of course I've asked him what sort of place it was. I'm sorry if youdidn't want me to. "

"Have I said that? It's perfectly easy to push on to Paris. Unless--"

"Unless what?" Agatha dropped the pillow, and listened respectfully. Butin spite of her filial attitude she could not keep her youth and strengthand courage from quelling the forces of the elderly man. 

He said querulously, "I don't see why you take that tone with me. Youcertainly know what I mean. But if you don't care to deal openly with me, I won't ask you. " He dropped his eyes from her face, and at the same timea deep blush began to tinge it, growing up from her neck to her forehead. "You must know--you're not a child, " he continued, still with avertedeyes, "that this sort of thing can't go on. .. It must be something else, or it mustn't be anything at all. I don't ask you for your confidence, and you know that I've never sought to control you. "

This was not the least true, but Agatha answered, either absently orprovisionally, "No. "

"And I don't seek to do so now. If you have nothing that you wish to tellme--"

He waited, and after what seemed a long time, she asked as if she had notheard him, "Will you lie down a little before your supper, papa?"

"I will lie down when I feel like it, " he answered. "Send August with thesupper; he can look after me. "

His resentful tone, even more than his words, dismissed her, but she lefthim without apparent grievance, saying quietly, "I will send August. "

LXVII. 

Agatha did not come down to supper with Burnamy. She asked August, whenshe gave him her father's order, to have a cup of tea sent to her room, where, when it came, she remained thinking so long that it was rathertepid by the time she drank it. 

Then she went to her window, and looked out, first above and next below. Above, the moon was hanging over the gardened hollow before the Museumwith the airy lightness of an American moon. Below was Burnamy behind thetubbed evergreens, sitting tilted in his chair against the house wall, with the spark of his cigar fainting and flashing like an Americanfirefly. Agatha went down to the door, after a little delay, and seemedsurprised to find him there; at least she said, "Oh!" in a tone ofsurprise. 

Burnamy stood up, and answered, "Nice night. "

"Beautiful!" she breathed. "I didn't suppose the sky in Germany couldever be so clear. "

"It seems to be doing its best. "

"The flowers over there look like ghosts in the light, " she saiddreamily. 

"They're not. Don't you want to get your hat and wrap, and go over andexpose the fraud?"

"Oh, " she answered, as if it were merely a question of the hat and wrap, "I have them. "

They sauntered through the garden walks for a while, long enough to haveascertained that there was not a veridical phantom among the flowers, ifthey had been looking, and then when they came to their accustomed seat, they sat down, and she said, "I don't know that I've seen the moon soclear since we left Carlsbad. " At the last word his heart gave a jumpthat seemed to lodge it in his throat and kept him from speaking, so thatshe could resume without interruption, "I've got something of yours, thatyou left at the Posthof. The girl that broke the dishes found it, andLili gave it to Mrs. March for you. " This did not account for Agatha'shaving the thing, whatever it was; but when she took a handkerchief fromher belt, and put out her hand with it toward him, he seemed to find thather having it had necessarily followed. He tried to take it from her, buthis own hand trembled so that it clung to hers, and he gasped, "Can't yousay now, what you wouldn't say then?"

The logical sequence was no more obvious than be fore; but she apparentlyfelt it in her turn as he had felt it in his. She whispered back, "Yes, "and then she could not get out anything more till she entreated in ahalf-stifled voice, "Oh, don't!"

"No, no!" he panted. "I won't--I oughtn't to have done it--I beg yourpardon--I oughtn't to have spoken, --even--I--"

She returned in a far less breathless and tremulous fashion, but stillbetween laughing and crying, "I meant to make you. And now, if you'reever sorry, or I'm ever too topping about anything, you can be perfectlyfree to say that you'd never have spoken if you hadn't seen that I wantedyou to. "

"But I didn't see any such thing, " he protested. "I spoke because Icouldn't help it any longer. "

She laughed triumphantly. "Of course you think so! And that shows thatyou are only a man after all; in spite of your finessing. But I am goingto have the credit of it. I knew that you were holding back because youwere too proud, or thought you hadn't the right, or something. Weren'tyou?" She startled him with the sudden vehemence of her challenge: "Ifyou pretend, that you weren't I shall never forgive you!"

"But I was! Of course I was. I was afraid--"

"Isn't that what I said?" She triumphed over him with another laugh, andcowered a little closer to him, if that could be. 

They were standing, without knowing how they had got to their feet; andnow without any purpose of the kind, they began to stroll again among thegarden paths, and to ask and to answer questions, which touched everypoint of their common history, and yet left it a mine of inexhaustibleknowledge for all future time. Out of the sweet and dear delight of thisencyclopedian reserve two or three facts appeared with a presentdistinctness. One of these was that Burnamy had regarded her refusal tobe definite at Carlsbad as definite refusal, and had meant never to seeher again, and certainly never to speak again of love to her. Anotherpoint was that she had not resented his coming back that last night, buthad been proud and happy in it as proof of his love, and had always meantsomehow to let him know that she was torched by his trusting her enoughto come back while he was still under that cloud with Mr. Stoller. Withfurther logic, purely of the heart, she acquitted him altogether of wrongin that affair, and alleged in proof, what Mr. Stoller had said of it toMr. March. Burnamy owned that he knew what Stoller had said, but even inhis present condition he could not accept fully her reading of thatobscure passage of his life. He preferred to put the question by, andperhaps neither of them cared anything about it except as it related tothe fact that they were now each other's forever. 

They agreed that they must write to Mr. And Mrs. March at once; or atleast, Agatha said, as soon as she had spoken to her father. At hermention of her father she was aware of a doubt, a fear, in Burnamy whichexpressed itself by scarcely more than a spiritual consciousness from hisarm to the hands which she had clasped within it. "He has alwaysappreciated you, " she said courageously, "and I know he will see it inthe right light. "

She probably meant no more than to affirm her faith in her own abilityfinally to bring her father to a just mind concerning it; but Burnamyaccepted her assurance with buoyant hopefulness, and said he would seeGeneral Triscoe the first thing in the morning. 

"No, I will see him, " she said, "I wish to see him first; he will expectit of me. We had better go in, now, " she added, but neither made anymotion for the present to do so. On the contrary, they walked in theother direction, and it was an hour after Agatha declared their duty inthe matter before they tried to fulfil it. 

Then, indeed, after they returned to the hotel, she lost no time in goingto her father beyond that which must be given to a long hand-pressureunder the fresco of the five poets on the stairs landing, where her waysand Burnamy's parted. She went into her own room, and softly opened thedoor into her father's and listened. 

"Well?" he said in a sort of challenging voice. 

"Have you been asleep?" she asked. 

"I've just blown out my light. What has kept you?"

She did not reply categorically. Standing there in the sheltering dark, she said, "Papa, I wasn't very candid with you, this afternoon. I amengaged to Mr. Burnamy. "

"Light the candle, " said her father. "Or no, " he added before she coulddo so. "Is it quite settled?"

"Quite, " she answered in a voice that admitted of no doubt. "That is, asfar as it can be, without you. "

"Don't be a hypocrite, Agatha, " said the general. "And let me try to getto sleep. You know I don't like it, and you know I can't help it. "

"Yes, " the girl assented. 

"Then go to bed, " said the general concisely. 

Agatha did not obey her father. She thought she ought to kiss him, butshe decided that she had better postpone this; so she merely gave him atender goodnight, to which he made no response, and shut herself into herown room, where she remained sitting and staring out into the moonlight, with a smile that never left her lips. 

When the moon sank below the horizon, the sky was pale with the comingday, but before it was fairly dawn, she saw something white, not muchgreater than some moths, moving before her window. She pulled the valvesopen and found it a bit of paper attached to a thread dangling fromabove. She broke it loose and in the morning twilight she read the greatcentral truth of the universe:

"I love you. L. J. B. "

She wrote under the tremendous inspiration:

"So do I. Don't be silly. A. T. "

She fastened the paper to the thread again, and gave it a little twitch. She waited for the low note of laughter which did not fail to flutterdown from above; then she threw herself upon the bed, and fell asleep. 

It was not so late as she thought when she woke, and it seemed, atbreakfast, that Burnamy had been up still earlier. Of the three involvedin the anxiety of the night before General Triscoe was still respitedfrom it by sleep, but he woke much more haggard than either of the youngpeople. They, in fact, were not at all haggard; the worst was over, ifbringing their engagement to his knowledge was the worst; the formalityof asking his consent which Burnamy still had to go through wasunpleasant, but after all it was a formality. Agatha told him everythingthat had passed between herself and her father, and if it had not thatcordiality on his part which they could have wished it was certainly nothopelessly discouraging. 

They agreed at breakfast that Burnamy had better have it over as quicklyas possible, and he waited only till August came down with the general'stray before going up to his room. The young fellow did not feel more athis ease than the elder meant he should in taking the chair to which thegeneral waved him from where he lay in bed; and there was no talk wastedupon the weather between them. 

"I suppose I know what you have come for, Mr. Burnamy, " said GeneralTriscoe in a tone which was rather judicial than otherwise, "and Isuppose you know why you have come. " The words certainly opened the wayfor Burnamy, but he hesitated so long to take it that the general hadabundant time to add, "I don't pretend that this event is unexpected, butI should like to know what reason you have for thinking I should wish youto marry my daughter. I take it for granted that you are attached to eachother, and we won't waste time on that point. Not to beat about the bush, on the next point, let me ask at once what your means of supporting herare. How much did you earn on that newspaper in Chicago?"

"Fifteen hundred dollars, " Burnamy answered, promptly enough. 

"Did you earn anything more, say within the last year?"

"I got three hundred dollars advance copyright for a book I sold to apublisher. " The glory had not yet faded from the fact in Burnamy's mind. 

"Eighteen hundred. What did you get for your poem in March's book?"

"That's a very trifling matter: fifteen dollars. "

"And your salary as private secretary to that man Stoller?"

"Thirty dollars a week, and my expenses. But I wouldn't take that, General Triscoe, " said Burnamy. 

General Triscoe, from his 'lit de justice', passed this point in silence. "Have you any one dependent on you?"

"My mother; I take care of my mother, " answered Burnamy, proudly. 

"Since you have broken with Stoller, what are your prospects?"

"I have none. "

"Then you don't expect to support my daughter; you expect to live uponher means. "

"I expect to do nothing of the kind!" cried Burnamy. "I should beashamed--I should feel disgraced--I should--I don't ask you--I don't askher till I have the means to support her--"

"If you were very fortunate, " continued the general, unmoved by the youngfellow's pain, and unperturbed by the fact that he had himself lived uponhis wife's means as long as she lived, and then upon his daughter's, "ifyou went back to Stoller--"

"I wouldn't go back to him. I don't say he's knowingly a rascal, but he'signorantly a rascal, and he proposed a rascally thing to me. I behavedbadly to him, and I'd give anything to undo the wrong I let him dohimself; but I'll never go back to him. "

"If you went back, on your old salary, " the general persisted pitilessly, "you would be very fortunate if you brought your earnings up totwenty-five hundred a year. "

"Yes--"

"And how far do you think that would go in supporting my daughter on thescale she is used to? I don't speak of your mother, who has the firstclaim upon you. "

Burnamy sat dumb; and his head which he had lifted indignantly when thequestion was of Stoller, began to sink. 

The general went on. "You ask me to give you my daughter when you haven'tmoney enough to keep her in gowns; you ask me to give her to astranger--"

"Not quite a stranger, General Triscoe, " Burnamy protested. "You haveknown me for three months at least, and any one who knows me in Chicagowill tell you--"

"A stranger, and worse than a stranger, " the general continued, sopleased with the logical perfection of his position that he almostsmiled, and certainly softened toward Burnamy. "It isn't a question ofliking you, Mr. Burnamy, but of knowing you; my daughter likes you; so dothe Marches; so does everybody who has met you. I like you myself. You'vedone me personally a thousand kindnesses. But I know very little of you, in spite of our three months' acquaintance; and that little is--But youshall judge for yourself! You were in the confidential employ of a manwho trusted you, and you let him betray himself. "

"I did. I don't excuse it. The thought of it burns like fire. But itwasn't done maliciously; it wasn't done falsely; it was doneinconsiderately; and when it was done, it seemed irrevocable. But itwasn't; I could have prevented, I could have stooped the mischief; and Ididn't! I can never outlive that. "

"I know, " said the general relentlessly, "that you have never attemptedany defence. That has been to your credit with me. It inclined me tooverlook your unwarranted course in writing to my daughter, when you toldher you would never see her again. What did you expect me to think, afterthat, of your coming back to see her? Or didn't you expect me to knowit?"

"I expected you to know it; I knew she would tell you. But I don't excusethat, either. It was acting a lie to come back. All I can say is that Ihad to see her again for one last time. "

"And to make sure that it was to be the last time, you offered yourselfto her. "

"I couldn't help doing that. "

"I don't say you could. I don't judge the facts at all. I leave themaltogether to you; and you shall say what a man in my position ought tosay to such a man as you have shown yourself. "

"No, I will say. " The door into the adjoining room was flung open, andAgatha flashed in from it. 

Her father looked coldly at her impassioned face. "Have you beenlistening?" he asked. 

"I have been hearing--"

"Oh!" As nearly as a man could, in bed, General Triscoe shrugged. 

"I suppose I had, a right to be in my own room. I couldn't help hearing;and I was perfectly astonished at you, papa, the cruel way you went on, after all you've said about Mr. Stoller, and his getting no more than hedeserved. "

"That doesn't justify me, " Burnamy began, but she cut him short almost asseverely as she--had dealt with her father. 

"Yes, it does! It justifies you perfectly! And his wanting you to falsifythe whole thing afterwards, more than justifies you. "

Neither of the men attempted anything in reply to her casuistry; theyboth looked equally posed by it, for different reasons; and Agatha wenton as vehemently as before, addressing herself now to one and now to theother. 

"And besides, if it didn't justify you, what you have done yourselfwould; and your never denying it, or trying to excuse it, makes it thesame as if you hadn't done it, as far as you are concerned; and that isall I care for. " Burnamy started, as if with the sense of having heardsomething like this before, and with surprise at hearing it now; and sheflushed a little as she added tremulously, "And I should never, neverblame you for it, after that; it's only trying to wriggle out of thingswhich I despise, and you've never done that. And he simply had to comeback, " she turned to her father, "and tell me himself just how it was. And you said yourself, papa--or the same as said--that he had no right tosuppose I was interested in his affairs unless he--unless--And I shouldnever have forgiven him, if he hadn't told me then that he that he hadcome back because he--felt the way he did. I consider that thatexonerated him for breaking his word, completely. If he hadn't broken hisword I should have thought he had acted very cruelly and--and strangely. And ever since then, he has behaved so nobly, so honorably, sodelicately, that I don't believe he would ever have said anythingagain--if I hadn't fairly forced him. Yes! Yes, I did!" she cried at amovement of remonstrance from Burnamy. "And I shall always be proud ofyou for it. " Her father stared steadfastly at her, and he only lifted hiseyebrows, for change of expression, when she went over to where Burnamystood, and put her hand in his with a certain childlike impetuosity. "Andas for the rest, " she declared, "everything I have is his; just aseverything of his would be mine if I had nothing. Or if he wishes to takeme without anything, then he can have me so, and I sha'n't be afraid butwe can get along somehow. " She added, "I have managed without a maid, ever since I left home, and poverty has no terrors for me!"

LXVIII. 

General Triscoe submitted to defeat with the patience which soldierslearn. He did not submit amiably; that would have been out of character, and perhaps out of reason; but Burnamy and Agatha were both so amiablethat they supplied good-humor for all. They flaunted their rapture in herfather's face as little as they could, but he may have found their serenesatisfaction, their settled confidence in their fate, as hard to bear asa more boisterous happiness would have been. 

It was agreed among them all that they were to return soon to America, and Burnamy was to find some sort of literary or journalistic employmentin New York. She was much surer than he that this could be done withperfect ease; but they were of an equal mind that General Triscoe was notto be disturbed in any of his habits, or vexed in the tenor of hisliving; and until Burnamy was at least self-supporting there must be notalk of their being married. 

The talk of their being engaged was quite enough for the time. Itincluded complete and minute auto-biographies on both sides, reciprocalanalyses of character, a scientifically exhaustive comparison of tastes, ideas and opinions; a profound study of their respective chins, noses, eyes, hands, heights, complexions, moles and freckles, with some accountof their several friends. 

In this occupation, which was profitably varied by the confession of whatthey had each thought and felt and dreamt concerning the other at everyinstant since they met, they passed rapidly the days which the persistentanxiety of General Triscoe interposed before the date of their leavingWeimar for Paris, where it was arranged that they should spend a monthbefore sailing for New York. Burnamy had a notion, which Agatha approved, of trying for something there on the New York-Paris Chronicle; and if hegot it they might not go home at once. His gains from that paper had ekedout his copyright from his book, and had almost paid his expenses ingetting the material which he had contributed to it. They were not sogreat, however, but that his gold reserve was reduced to less than ahundred dollars, counting the silver coinages which had remained to himin crossing and recrossing frontiers. He was at times dimly conscious ofhis finances, but he buoyantly disregarded the facts, as incompatiblewith his status as Agatha's betrothed, if not unworthy of his characteras a lover in the abstract. 

The afternoon before they were to leave Weimar, they spent mostly in thegarden before the Grand-Ducal Museum, in a conference so important thatwhen it came on to rain, at one moment, they put up Burnamy's umbrella, and continued to sit under it rather than interrupt the proceedings evento let Agatha go back to the hotel and look after her father's packing. Her own had been finished before dinner, so as to leave her the wholeafternoon for their conference, and to allow her father to remain inundisturbed possession of his room as long as possible. 

What chiefly remained to be put into the general's trunk were his coatsand trousers, hanging in the closet, and August took these down, andcarefully folded and packed them. Then, to make sure that nothing hadbeen forgotten, Agatha put a chair into the closet when she came in, andstood on it to examine the shelf which stretched above the hooks. 

There seemed at first to be nothing on it, and then there seemed to besomething in the further corner, which when it was tiptoed for, proved tobe a bouquet of flowers, not so faded as to seem very old; the blue satinribbon which they were tied up with, and which hung down half a yard, wasof entire freshness except far the dust of the shelf where it had lain. 

Agatha backed out into the room with her find in her hand, and examinedit near to, and then at arm's length. August stood by with a pair of thegeneral's trousers lying across his outstretched hands, and as Agathaabsently looked round at him, she caught a light of intelligence in hiseyes which changed her whole psychological relation to the witheredbouquet. Till then it had been a lifeless, meaningless bunch of flowers, which some one, for no motive, had tossed up on that dusty shelf in thecloset. At August's smile it became something else. Still she askedlightly enough, "Was ist loss, August?"

His smile deepened and broadened. "Fur die Andere, " he explained. 

Agatha demanded in English, "What do you mean by feardy ondery?"

"Oddaw lehdy. "

"Other lady?" August nodded, rejoicing in big success, and Agatha closedthe door into her own room, where the general had been put for the timeso as to be spared the annoyance of the packing; then she sat down withher hands in her lap, and the bouquet in her hands. "Now, August, " shesaid very calmly, "I want you to tell me-ich wunsche Sie zu mirsagen--what other lady--wass andere Dame--these flowers belongedto--diese Blumen gehorte zu. Verstehen Sie?"

August nodded brightly, and with German carefully adjusted to Agatha'scapacity, and with now and then a word or phrase of English, he conveyedthat before she and her Herr Father had appeared, there had been inWeimar another American Fraulein with her Frau Mother; they had notindeed staid in that hotel, but had several times supped there with theyoung Herr Bornahmee, who was occupying that room before her Herr Father. The young Herr had been much about with these American Damen, driving andwalking with them, and sometimes dining or supping with them at theirhotel, The Elephant. August had sometimes carried notes to them from theyoung Herr, and he had gone for the bouquet which the gracious Frauleinwas holding, on the morning of the day that the American Damen left bythe train for Hanover. 

August was much helped and encouraged throughout by the friendlyintelligence of the gracious Fraulein, who smiled radiantly in clearingup one dim point after another, and who now and then supplied the Englishanalogues which he sought in his effort to render his German moreluminous. 

At the end she returned to the work of packing, in which she directedhim, and sometimes assisted him with her own hands, having put thebouquet on the mantel to leave herself free. She took it up again andcarried it into her own room, when she went with August to summon herfather back to his. She bade August say to the young Herr, if he saw him, that she was going to sup with her father, and August gave her message toBurnamy, whom he met on the stairs coming down as he was going up withtheir tray. 

Agatha usually supped with her father, but that evening Burnamy was lessable than usual to bear her absence in the hotel dining-room, and he wentup to a cafe in the town for his supper. He did not stay long, and whenhe returned his heart gave a joyful lift at sight of Agatha looking outfrom her balcony, as if she were looking for him. He made her a gayflourishing bow, lifting his hat high, and she came down to meet him atthe hotel door. She had her hat on and jacket over one arm and she joinedhim at once for the farewell walk he proposed in what they had agreed tocall their garden. 

She moved a little ahead of him, and when they reached the place wherethey always sat, she shifted her jacket to the other arm and uncoveredthe hand in which she had been carrying the withered bouquet. "Here issomething I found in your closet, when I was getting papa's things out. "

"Why, what is it?" he asked innocently, as he took it from her. 

"A bouquet, apparently, " she answered, as he drew the long ribbonsthrough his fingers, and looked at the flowers curiously, with his headaslant. 

"Where did you get it?"

"On the shelf. "

It seemed a long time before Burnamy said with a long sigh, as of finalrecollection, "Oh, yes, " and then he said nothing; and they did not sitdown, but stood looking at each other. 

"Was it something you got for me, and forgot to give me?" she asked in avoice which would not have misled a woman, but which did its work withthe young man. 

He laughed and said, "Well, hardly! The general has been in the room eversince you came. "

"Oh, yes. Then perhaps somebody left it there before you had the room?"

Burnamy was silent again, but at last he said, "No, I flung it up there Ihad forgotten all about it. "

"And you wish me to forget about it, too?" Agatha asked in a gayety oftone that still deceived him. 

"It would only be fair. You made me, " he rejoined, and there wassomething so charming in his words and way, that she would have been gladto do it. 

But she governed herself against the temptation and said, "Women are notgood at forgetting, at least till they know what. "

"Oh, I'll tell you, if you want to know, " he said with a laugh, and atthe words she--sank provisionally in their accustomed seat. He sat downbeside her, but not so near as usual, and he waited so long before hebegan that it seemed as if he had forgotten again. "Why, it's nothing. Miss Etkins and her mother were here before you came, and this is abouquet that I meant to give her at the train when she left. But Idecided I wouldn't, and I threw it onto the shelf in the closet. "

"May I ask why you thought of taking a bouquet to her at the train?"

"Well, she and her mother--I had been with them a good deal, and Ithought it would be civil. "

"And why did you decide not to be civil?"

"I didn't want it to look like more than civility. "

"Were they here long?"

"About a week. They left just after the Marches came. "

Agatha seemed not to heed the answer she had exacted. She sat reclined inthe corner of the seat, with her head drooping. After an interval whichwas long to Burnamy she began to pull at a ring on the third finger ofher left hand, absently, as if she did not know what she was doing; butwhen she had got it off she held it towards Burnamy and said quietly, "Ithink you had better have this again, " and then she rose and moved slowlyand weakly away. 

He had taken the ring mechanically from her, and he stood a momentbewildered; then he pressed after her. 

"Agatha, do you--you don't mean--"

"Yes, " she said, without looking round at his face, which she knew wasclose to her shoulder. "It's over. It isn't what you've done. It's whatyou are. I believed in you, in spite of what you did to that man--andyour coming back when you said you wouldn't--and--But I see now that whatyou did was you; it was your nature; and I can't believe in you anymore. "

"Agatha!" he implored. "You're not going to be so unjust! There wasnothing between you and me when that girl was here! I had a right to--"

"Not if you really cared for me! Do you think I would have flirted withany one so soon, if I had cared for you as you pretended you did for methat night in Carlsbad? Oh, I don't say you're false. But you'refickle--"

"But I'm not fickle! From the first moment I saw you, I never cared forany one but you!"

"You have strange ways of showing your devotion. Well, say you are notfickle. Say, that I'm fickle. I am. I have changed my mind. I see that itwould never do. I leave you free to follow all the turning and twistingof your fancy. " She spoke rapidly, almost breathlessly, and she gave himno chance to get out the words that seemed to choke him. She began torun, but at the door of the hotel she stopped and waited till he camestupidly up. "I have a favor to ask, Mr. Burnamy. I beg you will not seeme again, if you can help it before we go to-morrow. My father and I areindebted to you for too many kindnesses, and you mustn't take any moretrouble on our account. August can see us off in the morning. "

She nodded quickly, and was gone in-doors while he was yet strugglingwith his doubt of the reality of what had all so swiftly happened. 

General Triscoe was still ignorant of any change in the status to whichhe had reconciled himself with so much difficulty, when he came down toget into the omnibus for the train. Till then he had been too proud toask what had become of Burnamy, though he had wondered, but now he lookedabout and said impatiently, "I hope that young man isn't going to keep uswaiting. "

Agatha was pale and worn with sleeplessness, but she said firmly, "Heisn't going, papa. I will tell you in the train. August will see to thetickets and the baggage. "

August conspired with the traeger to get them a first-class compartmentto themselves. But even with the advantages of this seclusion Agatha'sconfidences to her father were not full. She told her father that herengagement was broken for reasons that did not mean anything very wrongin Mr. Burnamy but that convinced her they could never be happy together. As she did not give the reasons, he found a natural difficulty inaccepting them, and there was something in the situation which appealedstrongly to his contrary-mindedness. Partly from this, partly from hissense of injury in being obliged so soon to adjust himself to newconditions, and partly from his comfortable feeling of security from anengagement to which his assent had been forced, he said, "I hope you'renot making a mistake. "

"Oh, no, " she answered, and she attested her conviction by a burst ofsobbing that lasted well on the way to the first stop of the train. 

LXIX. 

It would have been always twice as easy to go direct from Berlin to theHague through Hanover; but the Marches decided to go by Frankfort and theRhine, because they wished to revisit the famous river, which theyremembered from their youth, and because they wished to stop atDusseldorf, where Heinrich Heine was born. Without this Mrs. March, whokept her husband up to his early passion for the poet with a feeling thatshe was defending him from age in it, said that their silver weddingjourney would not be complete; and he began himself to think that itwould be interesting. 

They took a sleeping-car for Frankfort and they woke early as people doin sleeping-cars everywhere. March dressed and went out for a cup of thesame coffee of which sleeping-car buffets have the awful secret in Europeas well as America, and for a glimpse of the twilight landscape. One graylittle town, towered and steepled and red-roofed within its mediaevalwalls, looked as if it would have been warmer in something more. Therewas a heavy dew, if not a light frost, over all, and in places a pale fogbegan to lift from the low hills. Then the sun rose without dispersingthe cold, which was afterwards so severe in their room at the RussischerHof in Frankfort that in spite of the steam-radiators they sat shiveringin all their wraps till breakfast-time. 

There was no steam on in the radiators, of course; when they implored theportier for at least a lamp to warm their hands by he turned on all theelectric lights without raising the temperature in the slightest degree. Amidst these modern comforts they were so miserable that they vowed eachother to shun, as long as they were in Germany, or at least while thesummer lasted, all hotels which were steam-heated and electric-lighted. They heated themselves somewhat with their wrath, and over theirbreakfast they relented so far as to suffer themselves a certain interestin the troops of all arms beginning to pass the hotel. They werefragments of the great parade, which had ended the day before, and theywere now drifting back to their several quarters of the empire. Many ofthem were very picturesque, and they had for the boys and girls runningbefore and beside them, the charm which armies and circus processionshave for children everywhere. But their passage filled with cruel anxietya large old dog whom his master had left harnessed to a milk-cart beforethe hotel door; from time to time he lifted up his voice, and called tothe absentee with hoarse, deep barks that almost shook him from his feet. 

The day continued blue and bright and cold, and the Marches gave themorning to a rapid survey of the city, glad that it was at least not wet. What afterwards chiefly remained to them was the impression of an oldtown as quaint almost and as Gothic as old Hamburg, and a new town, handsome and regular, and, in the sudden arrest of some streets, apparently overbuilt. The modern architectural taste was of courseParisian; there is no other taste for the Germans; but in the prevailingabsence of statues there was a relief from the most oppressivecharacteristic of the imperial capital which was a positive delight. Somesort of monument to the national victory over France there must havebeen; but it must have been unusually inoffensive, for it left no recordof itself in the travellers' consciousness. They were aware of gardenedsquares and avenues, bordered by stately dwellings, of dignified civicedifices, and of a vast and splendid railroad station, such as the statebuilds even in minor European cities, but such as our paternalcorporations have not yet given us anywhere in America. They went to theZoological Garden, where they heard the customary Kalmucks at theirpublic prayers behind a high board fence; and as pilgrims from the mostplutrocratic country in the world March insisted that they must pay theirdevoirs at the shrine of the Rothschilds, whose natal banking-house theyrevered from the outside. 

It was a pity, he said, that the Rothschilds were not on his letter ofcredit; he would have been willing to pay tribute to the Genius ofFinance in the percentage on at least ten pounds. But he consoled himselfby reflecting that he did not need the money; and he consoled Mrs. Marchfor their failure to penetrate to the interior of the Rothschilds'birthplace by taking her to see the house where Goethe was born. Thepublic is apparently much more expected there, and in the friendly placethey were no doubt much more welcome than they would have been in theRothschild house. Under that roof they renewed a happy moment of Weimar, which after the lapse of a week seemed already so remote. They wondered, as they mounted the stairs from the basement opening into a clean littlecourt, how Burnamy was getting on, and whether it had yet come to thatunderstanding between him and Agatha, which Mrs. March, at least, hadmeant to be inevitable. Then they became part of some such sight-seeingretinue as followed the custodian about in the Goethe horse in Weimar, and of an emotion indistinguishable from that of their fellowsight-seers. They could make sure, afterwards, of a personal pleasure ina certain prescient classicism of the house. It somehow recalled both theGoethe houses at Weimar, and it somehow recalled Italy. It is a separatehouse of two floors above the entrance, which opens to a little court oryard, and gives access by a decent stairway to the living-rooms. Thechief of these is a sufficiently dignified parlor or salon, and the mostimportant is the little chamber in the third story where the poet firstopened his eyes to the light which he rejoiced in for so long a life, andwhich, dying, he implored to be with him more. It is as large as hisdeath-chamber in Weimar, where he breathed this prayer, and it looks downinto the Italian-looking court, where probably he noticed the world forthe first time, and thought it a paved enclosure thirty or forty feetsquare. In the birth-room they keep his puppet theatre, and the place isfairly suggestive of his childhood; later, in his youth, he could lookfrom the parlor windows and see the house where his earliest love dwelt. So much remains of Goethe in the place where he was born, and as suchthings go, it is not a little. The house is that of a prosperous andwell-placed citizen, and speaks of the senatorial quality in his familywhich Heine says he was fond of recalling, rather than the sartorialquality of the ancestor who, again as Heine says, mended the Republic'sbreeches. 

From the Goethe house, one drives by the Goethe monument to the Romer, the famous town-hall of the old free imperial city which Frankfort oncewas; and by this route the Marches drove to it, agreeing with theircoachman that he was to keep as much in the sun as possible. It was stillso cold that when they reached the Romer, and he stopped in a broad blazeof the only means of heating that they have in Frankfort in the summer, the travellers were loath to leave it for the chill interior, where theGerman emperors were elected for so many centuries. As soon as an emperorwas chosen, in the great hall effigied round with the portraits of hispredecessors, he hurried out in the balcony, ostensibly to show himselfto the people, but really, March contended, to warm up a little in thesun. The balcony was undergoing repairs that day, and the travellerscould not go out on it; but under the spell of the historic interest ofthe beautiful old Gothic place, they lingered in the interior till theywere half-torpid with the cold. Then she abandoned to him the joint dutyof viewing the cathedral, and hurried to their carriage where she baskedin the sun till he came to her. He returned shivering, after ahalf-hour's absence, and pretended that she had missed the greatest thingin the world, but as he could never be got to say just what she had lost, and under the closest cross-examination could not prove that thiscathedral was memorably different from hundreds of otherfourteenth-century cathedrals, she remained in a lasting content with theeasier part she had chosen. His only definite impression at the cathedralseemed to be confined to a Bostonian of gloomily correct type, whom hehad seen doing it with his Baedeker, and not letting an object ofinterest escape; and his account of her fellow-townsman reconciled Mrs. March more and more to not having gone. 

As it was warmer out-doors than in-doors at Frankfort, and as the breadthof sunshine increased with the approach of noon they gave the rest of themorning to driving about and ignorantly enjoying the outside of manyGothic churches, whose names even they did not trouble themselves tolearn. They liked the river Main whenever they came to it, because it wasso lately from Wurzburg, and because it was so beautiful with itsbridges, old and new, and its boats of many patterns. They liked themarket-place in front of the Romer not only because it was full offascinating bargains in curious crockery and wooden-ware, but becausethere was scarcely any shade at all in it. They read from their Baedekerthat until the end of the last century no Jew was suffered to enter themarketplace, and they rejoiced to find from all appearances that the Jewshad been making up for their unjust exclusion ever since. They werealmost as numerous there as the Anglo-Saxons were everywhere else inFrankfort. These, both of the English and American branches of the race, prevailed in the hotel diningroom, where the Marches had a mid-day dinnerso good that it almost made amends for the steam-heating andelectric-lighting. 

As soon as possible after dinner they took the train for Mayence, and ranRhinewards through a pretty country into what seemed a milder climate. Itgrew so much milder, apparently, that a lady in their compartment to whomMarch offered his forward-looking seat, ordered the window down when theguard came, without asking their leave. Then the climate proved muchcolder, and Mrs. March cowered under her shawls the rest of the way, andwould not be entreated to look at the pleasant level landscape near, orthe hills far off. He proposed to put up the window as peremptorily as ithad been put down, but she stayed him with a hoarse whisper, "She may beanother Baroness!" At first he did not know what she meant, then heremembered the lady whose claims to rank her presence had so poorlyenforced on the way to Wurzburg, and he perceived that his wife waspractising a wise forbearance with their fellow-passengers, and givingher a chance to turn out any sort of highhote she chose. She failed toprofit by the opportunity; she remained simply a selfish, disagreeablewoman, of no more perceptible distinction than their otherfellow-passenger, a little commercial traveller from Vienna (theyresolved from his appearance and the lettering on his valise that he wasno other), who slept with a sort of passionate intensity all the way toMayence. 

LXX. 

The Main widened and swam fuller as they approached the Rhine, andflooded the low-lying fields in-places with a pleasant effect under a wetsunset. When they reached the station in Mayence they drove interminablyto the hotel they had chosen on the river-shore, through a city handsomerand cleaner than any American city they could think of, and great part ofthe way by a street of dwellings nobler, Mrs. March owned, than evenCommonwealth Avenue in Boston. It was planted, like that, with doublerows of trees, but lacked its green lawns; and at times the sign ofWeinhandlung at a corner, betrayed that there was no such restrictionagainst shops as keeps the Boston street so sacred. Otherwise they had toconfess once more that any inferior city of Germany is of a more properand dignified presence than the most parse-proud metropolis in America. To be sure, they said, the German towns had generally a thousand years'start; but all the same the fact galled them. 

It was very bleak, though very beautiful when they stopped before theirhotel on the Rhine, where all their impalpable memories of their visit toMayence thirty years earlier precipitated themselves into somethingtangible. There were the reaches of the storied and fabled stream withits boats and bridges and wooded shores and islands; there were thespires and towers and roofs of the town on either bank crowding to theriver's brink; and there within-doors was the stately portier in goldbraid, and the smiling, bowing, hand-rubbing landlord, alluring them tohis most expensive rooms, which so late in the season he would fain havehad them take. But in a little elevator, that mounted slowly, veryslowly, in the curve of the stairs, they went higher to something lower, and the landlord retired baked, and left them to the ministrations of theserving-men who arrived with their large and small baggage. All theseretired in turn when they asked to have a fire lighted in the stove, without which Mrs. March would never have taken the fine stately rooms, and sent back a pretty young girl to do it. She came indignant, notbecause she had come lugging a heavy hod of coal and a great arm-load ofwood, but because her sense of fitness was outraged by the strangedemand. 

"What!" she cried. "A fire in September!"

"Yes, " March returned, inspired to miraculous aptness in his German bythe exigency, "yes, if September is cold. "

The girl looked at him, and then, either because she thought him mad, orliked him merry, burst into a loud laugh, and kindled the fire without aword more. 

He lighted all the reluctant gas-jets in the vast gilt chandelier, and inless than half an hour the temperature of the place rose to at leastsixty-five Fahrenheit, with every promise of going higher. Mrs. Marchmade herself comfortable in a deep chair before the stove, and said shewould have her supper there; and she bade him send her just such a supperof chicken and honey and tea as they had all had in Mayence when theysupped in her aunt's parlor there all those years ago. He wished tocompute the years, but she drove him out with an imploring cry, and hewent down to a very gusty dining-room on the ground-floor, where he foundhimself alone with a young English couple and their little boy. They werefriendly, intelligent people, and would have been conversable, apparently, but for the terrible cold of the husband, which he said hehad contracted at the manoeuvres in Hombourg. March said he was going toHolland, and the Englishman was doubtful of the warmth which Marchexpected to find there. He seemed to be suffering from a suspense offaith as to the warmth anywhere; from time to time the door of thedining-room self-opened in a silent, ghostly fashion into the courtwithout, and let in a chilling draught about the legs of all, till thelittle English boy got down from his place and shut it. 

He alone continued cheerful, for March's spirits certainly did not risewhen some mumbling Americans came in and muttered over their meat atanother table. He hated to own it, but he had to own that wherever he hadmet the two branches of the Anglo-Saxon race together in Europe, theelder had shown, by a superior chirpiness, to the disadvantage of theyounger. The cast clothes of the old-fashioned British offishness seemedto have fallen to the American travellers who were trying to be correctand exemplary; and he would almost rather have had back the old-stylebragging Americans whom he no longer saw. He asked of an agreeablefellow-countryman whom he found later in the reading-room, what hadbecome of these; and this compatriot said he had travelled with one onlythe day before, who had posed before their whole compartment in his scornof the German landscape, the German weather, the German government, theGerman railway management, and then turned out an American of Germanbirth! March found his wife in great bodily comfort when he went back toher, but in trouble of mind about a clock which she had discoveredstanding on the lacquered iron top of the stove. It was a French clock, of architectural pretensions, in the taste of the first Empire, and itlooked as if it had not been going since Napoleon occupied Mayence earlyin the century. But Mrs. March now had it sorely on her conscience where, in its danger from the heat of the stove, it rested with the weight ofthe Pantheon, whose classic form it recalled. She wondered that no onehad noticed it before the fire was kindled, and she required her husbandto remove it at once from the top of the stove to the mantel under themirror, which was the natural habitat of such a clock. He said nothingcould be simpler, but when he lifted it, it began to fall all apart, likea clock in the house of the Hoodoo. Its marble base dropped-off; itspillars tottered; its pediment swayed to one side. While Mrs. Marchlamented her hard fate, and implored him to hurry it together before anyone came, he contrived to reconstruct it in its new place. Then they bothbreathed freer, and returned to sit down before the stove. But at thesame moment they both saw, ineffaceably outlined on the lacquered top, the basal form of the clock. The chambermaid would see it in the morning;she would notice the removal of the clock, and would make a merit ofreporting its ruin by the heat to the landlord, and in the end they wouldbe mulcted of its value. Rather than suffer this wrong they agreed torestore it to its place, and, let it go to destruction upon its ownterms. March painfully rebuilt it where he had found it, and they went tobed with a bad conscience to worse dreams. 

He remembered, before he slept, the hour of his youth when he was inMayence before, and was so care free that he had heard with impersonaljoy two young American voices speaking English in the street under hiswindow. One of them broke from the common talk with a gay burlesque ofpathos in the line:

 "Oh heavens! she cried, my Heeding country save!"

and then with a laughing good-night these unseen, unknown spirits ofyouth parted and departed. Who were they, and in what different places, with what cares or ills, had their joyous voices grown old, or fallensilent for evermore? It was a moonlight night, March remembered, and heremembered how he wished he were out in it with those merry fellows. 

He nursed the memory and the wonder in his dreaming thought, and he wokeearly to other voices under his window. But now the voices, though young, were many and were German, and the march of feet and the stamp of hooveskept time with their singing. He drew his curtain and saw the streetfilled with broken squads of men, some afoot and some on horseback, somein uniform and some in civil dress with students' caps, looselystraggling on and roaring forth that song whose words he could not makeout. At breakfast he asked the waiter what it all meant, and he said thatthese were conscripts whose service had expired with the late manoeuvres, and who were now going home. He promised March a translation of the song, but he never gave it; and perhaps the sense of their joyful home-goingremained the more poetic with him because its utterance remainedinarticulate. 

March spent the rainy Sunday, on which they had fallen, in wanderingabout the little city alone. His wife said she was tired and would sit bythe fire, and hear about Mayence when he came in. He went to thecathedral, which has its renown for beauty and antiquity, and he thereadded to his stock of useful information the fact that the people ofMayence seemed very Catholic and very devout. They proved it bypreferring to any of the divine old Gothic shrines in the cathedral, anugly baroque altar, which was everywhere hung about with votiveofferings. A fashionably dressed young man and young girl sprinkledthemselves with holy water as reverently as if they had been old andragged. Some tourists strolled up and down the aisles with their redguide-books, and studied the objects of interest. A resplendent beadle ina cocked hat, and with along staff of authority posed before his ownecclesiastical consciousness in blue and silver. At the high altar apriest was saying mass, and March wondered whether his consciousness wasas wholly ecclesiastical as the beadle's, or whether somewhere in it hefelt the historical majesty, the long human consecration of the place. 

He wandered at random in the town through streets German and quaint andold, and streets French and fine and new, and got back to the river, which he crossed on one of the several handsome bridges. The rough riverlooked chill under a sky of windy clouds, and he felt out of season, bothas to the summer travel, and as to the journey he was making. The summerof life as well as the summer of that year was past. Better return to hisown radiator in his flat on Stuyvesant Square; to the great ugly brutaltown which, if it was not home to him, was as much home to him as to anyone. A longing for New York welled up his heart, which was perhaps reallya wish to be at work again. He said he must keep this from his wife, whoseemed not very well, and whom he must try to cheer up when he returnedto the hotel. 

But they had not a very joyous afternoon, and the evening was no gayer. They said that if they had not ordered their letters sent to Dusseldorfthey believed they should push on to Holland without stopping; and Marchwould have liked to ask, Why not push on to America? But he forbore, andhe was afterwards glad that he had done so. 

In the morning their spirits rose with the sun, though the sun got upbehind clouds as usual; and they were further animated by the impositionwhich the landlord practised upon them. After a distinct and repeatedagreement as to the price of their rooms he charged them twice as much, and then made a merit of throwing off two marks out of the twenty he hadplundered them of. 

"Now I see, " said Mrs. March, on their way down to the boat, "howfortunate it was that we baked his clock. You may laugh, but I believe wewere the instruments of justice. "

"Do you suppose that clock was never baked before?" asked her husband. "The landlord has his own arrangement with justice. When he overchargeshis parting guests he says to his conscience, Well, they baked my clock. "

LXXI. 

The morning was raw, but it was something not to have it rainy; and theclouds that hung upon the hills and hid their tops were at least as fineas the long board signs advertising chocolate on the river banks. Thesmoke rising from the chimneys of the manufactories of Mayence was not sobad, either, when one got them in the distance a little; and March likedthe way the river swam to the stems of the trees on the low grassyshores. It was like the Mississippi between St. Louis and Cairo in that, and it was yellow and thick, like the Mississippi, though he thought heremembered it blue and clear. A friendly German, of those who began tocome aboard more and more at all the landings after leaving Mayence, assured him that he was right, and that the Rhine was unusually turbidfrom the unusual rains. March had his own belief that whatever the colorof the Rhine might be the rains were not unusual, but he could notgainsay the friendly German. 

Most of the passengers at starting were English and American; but theyshowed no prescience of the international affinition which has sincerealized itself, in their behavior toward one another. They held silentlyapart, and mingled only in the effect of one young man who kept theMarches in perpetual question whether he was a Bostonian or anEnglishman. His look was Bostonian, but his accent was English; and washe a Bostonian who had been in England long enough to get the accent, orwas he an Englishman who had been in Boston long enough to get the look?He wore a belated straw hat, and a thin sack-coat; and in the rush of theboat through the raw air they fancied him very cold, and longed to offerhim one of their superabundant wraps. At times March actually lifted ashawl from his knees, feeling sure that the stranger was English and thathe might make so bold with him; then at some glacial glint in the youngman's eye, or at some petrific expression of his delicate face, he feltthat he was a Bostonian, and lost courage and let the shawl sink again. March tried to forget him in the wonder of seeing the Germans begin toeat and drink, as soon as they came on boards either from the basketsthey had brought with them, or from the boat's provision. But heprevailed, with his smile that was like a sneer, through all the eventsof the voyage; and took March's mind off the scenery with a sudden wrenchwhen he came unexpectedly into view after a momentary disappearance. Atthe table d'hote, which was served when the landscape began to be lessinteresting, the guests were expected to hand their plates across thetable to the stewards but to keep their knives and forks throughout thedifferent courses, and at each of these partial changes March felt theyoung man's chilly eyes upon him, inculpating him for thesemi-civilization of the management. At such times he knew that he was aBostonian. 

The weather cleared, as they descended the river, and under a sky at lastcloudless, the Marches had moments of swift reversion to their formerRhine journey, when they were young and the purple light of love mantledthe vineyarded hills along the shore, and flushed the castled steeps. Thescene had lost nothing of the beauty they dimly remembered; there werecertain features of it which seemed even fairer and grander than theyremembered. The town of Bingen, where everybody who knows the poem wasmore or less born, was beautiful in spite of its factory chimneys, thoughthere were no compensating castles near it; and the castles seemed asgood as those of the theatre. Here and there some of them had beenrestored and were occupied, probably by robber barons who had gone intotrade. Others were still ruinous, and there was now and then such a meregray snag that March, at sight of it, involuntarily put his tongue to thebroken tooth which he was keeping for the skill of the first Americandentist. 

For natural sublimity the Rhine scenery, as they recognized once more, does not compare with the Hudson scenery; and they recalled one point onthe American river where the Central Road tunnels a jutting cliff, whichmight very well pass for the rock of the Loreley, where she dreams

 'Solo sitting by the shores of old romance'

and the trains run in and out under her knees unheeded. "Still, still youknow, " March argued, "this is the Loreley on the Rhine, and not theLoreley on the Hudson; and I suppose that makes all the difference. Besides, the Rhine doesn't set up to be sublime; it only means to bestoried and dreamy and romantic and it does it. And then we have reallygot no Mouse Tower; we might build one, to be sure. "

"Well, we have got no denkmal, either, " said his wife, meaning thenational monument to the German reconquest of the Rhine, which they hadjust passed, "and that is something in our favor. "

"It was too far off for us to see how ugly it was, " he returned. 

"The denkmal at Coblenz was so near that the bronze Emperor almost rodeaboard the boat. "

He could not answer such a piece of logic as that. He yielded, and beganto praise the orcharded levels which now replaced the vine-purpled slopesof the upper river. He said they put him in mind of orchards that he hadknown in his boyhood; and they, agreed that the supreme charm of travel, after all, was not in seeing something new and strange, but in findingsomething familiar and dear in the heart of the strangeness. 

At Cologne they found this in the tumult of getting ashore with theirbaggage and driving from the steamboat landing to the railroad station, where they were to get their train for Dusseldorf an hour later. Thestation swarmed with travellers eating and drinking and smoking; but theyescaped from it for a precious half of their golden hour, and gave thetime to the great cathedral, which was built, a thousand years ago, justround the corner from the station, and is therefore very handy to it. Since they saw the cathedral last it had been finished, and now under acloudless evening sky, it soared and swept upward like a pale flame. Within it was a bit over-clean, a bit bare, but without it was one of thegreat memories of the race, the record of a faith which wrought miraclesof beauty, at least, if not piety. 

The train gave the Marches another, and last, view of it as they slowlydrew out of the city, and began to run through a level country walledwith far-off hills; past fields of buckwheat showing their stems likecoral under their black tops; past peasant houses changing their wontedshape to taller and narrower forms; past sluggish streams from which themist rose and hung over the meadows, under a red sunset, glassy cleartill the manifold factory chimneys of Dusseldorf stained it with theirdun smoke. 

This industrial greeting seemed odd from the town where Heinrich Heinewas born; but when they had eaten their supper in the capital littlehotel they found there, and went out for a stroll, they found nothing toremind them of the factories, and much to make them think of the poet. The moon, beautiful and perfect as a stage moon, came up over theshoulder of a church as they passed down a long street which they had allto themselves. Everybody seemed to have gone to bed, but at a certaincorner a girl opened a window above them, and looked out at the moon. 

When they returned to their hotel they found a highwalled garden facingit, full of black depths of foliage. In the night March woke and saw themoon standing over the garden, and silvering its leafy tops. This wasreally as it should be in the town where the idolized poet of his youthwas born; the poet whom of all others he had adored, and who had onceseemed like a living friend; who had been witness of his first love, andhad helped him to speak it. His wife used to laugh at him for hisHeine-worship in those days; but she had since come to share it, and she, even more than he, had insisted upon this pilgrimage. He thought longthoughts of the past, as he looked into the garden across the way, withan ache for his perished self and the dead companionship of his youth, all ghosts together in the silvered shadow. The trees shuddered in thenight breeze, and its chill penetrated to him where he stood. 

His wife called to him from her room, "What are you doing?"

"Oh, sentimentalizing, " he answered boldly. 

"Well, you will be sick, " she said, and he crept back into bed again. 

They had sat up late, talking in a glad excitement. But he woke early, asan elderly man is apt to do after broken slumbers, and left his wifestill sleeping. He was not so eager for the poetic interests of the townas he had been the night before; he even deferred his curiosity forHeine's birth-house to the instructive conference which he had with hiswaiter at breakfast. After all, was not it more important to knowsomething of the actual life of a simple common class of men than toindulge a faded fancy for the memory of a genius, which no amount ofassociations could feed again to its former bloom? The waiter said he wasa Nuremberger, and had learned English in London where he had served ayear for nothing. Afterwards, when he could speak three languages he gota pound a week, which seemed low for so many, though not so low as theone mark a day which he now received in Dusseldorf; in Berlin he paid thehotel two marks a day. March confided to him his secret trouble as totips, and they tried vainly to enlighten each other as to what a just tipwas. 

He went to his banker's, and when he came back he found his wife with herbreakfast eaten, and so eager for the exploration of Heine's birthplacethat she heard with indifference of his failure to get any letters. Itwas too soon to expect them, she said, and then she showed him her plan, which she had been working out ever since she woke. It contained everyplace which Heine had mentioned, and she was determined not one shouldescape them. She examined him sharply upon his condition, accusing him ofhaving taken cold when he got up in the night, and acquitting him withdifficulty. She herself was perfectly well, but a little fagged, and theymust have a carriage. 

They set out in a lordly two-spanner, which took up half the littleBolkerstrasse where Heine was born, when they stopped across the way fromhis birthhouse, so that she might first take it all in from the outsidebefore they entered it. It is a simple street, and not the cleanest ofthe streets in a town where most of them are rather dirty. Below thehouses are shops, and the first story of Heine's house is a butcher shop, with sides of pork and mutton hanging in the windows; above, where theHeine family must once have lived, a gold-beater and a frame-makerdisplayed their signs. 

But did the Heine family really once live there? The house looked sofresh and new that in spite of the tablet in its front affirming it thepoet's birthplace, they doubted; and they were not reassured by thepeople who half halted as they passed, and stared at the strangers, soanomalously interested in the place. They dismounted, and crossed to thebutcher shop where the provision man corroborated the tablet, but couldnot understand their wish to go up stairs. He did not try to preventthem, however, and they climbed to the first floor above, where a placardon the door declared it private and implored them not to knock. Was thisthe outcome of the inmate's despair from the intrusion of other pilgrimswho had wised to see the Heine dwelling-rooms? They durst not knock andask so much, and they sadly descended to the ground-floor, where theyfound a butcher boy of much greater apparent intelligence than thebutcher himself, who told them that the building in front was as new asit looked, and the house where Heine was really born was the old house inthe rear. He showed them this house, across a little court patched withmangy grass and lilac-bushes; and when they wished to visit it he led theway. The place was strewn both underfoot and overhead with feathers; ithad once been all a garden out to the street, the boy said, but fromthese feathers, as well as the odor which prevailed, and the anxiousbehavior of a few hens left in the high coop at one side, it was plainthat what remained of the garden was now a chicken slaughteryard. Therewas one well-grown tree, and the boy said it was of the poet's time; butwhen he let them into the house, he became vague as to the room whereHeine was born; it was certain only that it was somewhere upstairs andthat it could not be seen. The room where they stood was theframe-maker's shop, and they bought of him a small frame for a memorial. They bought of the butcher's boy, not so commercially, a branch of lilac;and they came away, thinking how much amused Heine himself would havebeen with their visit; how sadly, how merrily he would have mocked attheir effort to revere his birthplace. 

They were too old if not too wise to be daunted by their defeat, and theydrove next to the old court garden beside the Rhine where the poet sayshe used to play with the little Veronika, and probably did not. At anyrate, the garden is gone; the Schloss was burned down long ago; andnothing remains but a detached tower in which the good Elector JanWilhelm, of Heine's time, amused himself with his many mechanicalinventions. The tower seemed to be in process of demolition, but anintelligent workman who came down out of it, was interested in thestrangers' curiosity, and directed them to a place behind the HistoricalMuseum where they could find a bit of the old garden. It consisted of twoor three low trees, and under them the statue of the Elector by whichHeine sat with the little Veronika, if he really did. Afresh gale blowingthrough the trees stirred the bushes that backed the statue, but not thelaurel wreathing the Elector's head, and meeting in a neat point over hisforehead. The laurel wreath is stone, like the rest of the Elector, whostands there smirking in marble ermine and armor, and resting his batonon the nose of a very small lion, who, in the exigencies offoreshortening, obligingly goes to nothing but a tail under the Elector'srobe. 

This was a prince who loved himself in effigy so much that he raised anequestrian statue to his own renown in the market-place, though hemodestly refused the credit of it, and ascribed its erection to theaffection of his subjects. You see him therein a full-bottomed wig, mounted on a rampant charger with a tail as big round as a barrel, andheavy enough to keep him from coming down on his fore legs as long as helikes to hold them up. It was to this horse's back that Heine clamberedwhen a small boy, to see the French take formal possession of Dusseldorf;and he clung to the waist of the bronze Elector, who had just abdicated, while the burgomaster made a long speech, from the balcony of theRathhaus, and the Electoral arms were taken down from its doorway. 

The Rathhaus is a salad-dressing of German gothic and French rococo as toits architectural style, and is charming in its way, but the Marches werein the market-place for the sake of that moment of Heine's boyhood. Theyfelt that he might have been the boy who stopped as he ran before them, and smacked the stomach of a large pumpkin lying at the feet of an oldmarket-woman, and then dashed away before she could frame a protestagainst the indignity. From this incident they philosophized that theboys of Dusseldorf are as mischievous at the end of the century as theywere at the beginning; and they felt the fascination that such abounteous, unkempt old marketplace must have for the boys of any period. There were magnificent vegetables of all sorts in it, and if the fruitswere meagre that was the fault of the rainy summer, perhaps. Themarket-place was very dirty, and so was the narrow street leading downfrom it to the Rhine, which ran swift as a mountain torrent along aslatternly quay. A bridge of boats crossing the stream shook in the rapidcurrent, and a long procession of market carts passed slowly over, whilea cluster of scows waited in picturesque patience for the draw to open. 

They saw what a beautiful town that was for a boy to grow up in, and howmany privileges it offered, how many dangers, how many chances forhairbreadth escapes. They chose that Heine must often have rushedshrieking joyfully down that foul alley to the Rhine with other boys; andthey easily found a leaf-strewn stretch of the sluggish Dussel, in thePublic Garden, where his playmate, the little Wilhelm, lost his life andsaved the kitten's. They were not so sure of the avenue through which thepoet saw the Emperor Napoleon come riding on his small white horse whenhe took possession of the Elector's dominions. But if it was that wherethe statue of the Kaiser Wilhelm I. Comes riding on a horse led by twoVictories, both poet and hero are avenged there on the accomplished fact. Defeated and humiliated France triumphs in the badness of that foolishdenkmal (one of the worst in all denkmal-ridden Germany), and the memoryof the singer whom the Hohenzollern family pride forbids honor in hisnative place, is immortal in its presence. 

On the way back to their hotel, March made some reflections upon the openneglect, throughout Germany, of the greatest German lyrist, by which thepoet might have profited if he had been present. He contended that it wasnot altogether an effect of Hohenzollern pride, which could not suffer ajoke or two from the arch-humorist; but that Heine had said things ofGermany herself which Germans might well have found unpardonable. Heconcluded that it would not do to be perfectly frank with one's owncountry. Though, to be sure, there would always be the question whetherthe Jew-born Heine had even a step-fatherland in the Germany he loved sotenderly and mocked so pitilessly. He had to own that if he were a negropoet he would not feel bound to measure terms in speaking of America, andhe would not feel that his fame was in her keeping. 

Upon the whole he blamed Heine less than Germany and he accused her oftaking a shabby revenge, in trying to forget him; in the heat of hisresentment that there should be no record of Heine in the city where hewas born, March came near ignoring himself the fact that the poetFreiligrath was also born there. As for the famous Dusseldorf school ofpainting, which once filled the world with the worst art, he rejoicedthat it was now so dead, and he grudged the glance which the beauty ofthe new Art Academy extorted from him. It is in the French taste, and isso far a monument to the continuance in one sort of that Frenchsupremacy, of which in another sort another denkmal celebrates theoverthrow. Dusseldorf is not content with the denkmal of the Kaiser onhorseback, with the two Victories for grooms; there is a second, whichthe Marches found when they strolled out again late in the afternoon. Itis in the lovely park which lies in the heart of the city, and they feltin its presence the only emotion of sympathy which the many patrioticmonuments of Germany awakened in them. It had dignity and repose, whichthese never had elsewhere; but it was perhaps not so much for the dyingwarrior and the pitying lion of the sculpture that their hearts weremoved as for the gentle and mournful humanity of the inscription, whichdropped into equivalent English verse in March's note-book:

 Fame was enough for the Victors, and glory and verdurous laurel; Tears by their mothers wept founded this image of stone. 

To this they could forgive the vaunting record, on the reverse, of theGerman soldiers who died heroes in the war with France, the war withAustria, and even the war with poor little Denmark!

The morning had been bright and warm, and it was just that the afternoonshould be dim and cold, with a pale sun looking through a September mist, which seemed to deepen the seclusion and silence of the forest reaches;for the park was really a forest of the German sort, as parks are apt tobe in Germany. But it was beautiful, and they strayed through it, andsometimes sat down on the benches in its damp shadows, and said how muchseemed to be done in Germany for the people's comfort and pleasure. Inwhat was their own explicitly, as well as what was tacitly theirs, theywere not so restricted as we were at home, and especially the childrenseemed made fondly and lovingly free of all public things. The Marchesmet troops of them in the forest, as they strolled slowly back by thewinding Dussel to the gardened avenue leading to the park, and they foundthem everywhere gay and joyful. But their elders seemed subdued, and weresilent. The strangers heard no sound of laughter in the streets ofDusseldorf, and they saw no smiling except on the part of a very oldcouple, whose meeting they witnessed and who grinned and cackled at eachother like two children as they shook hands. Perhaps they were indeedchildren of that sad second childhood which one would rather not blossomback into. 

In America, life is yet a joke with us, even when it is grotesque andshameful, as it so often is; for we think we can make it right when wechoose. But there is no joking in Germany, between the first and secondchildhoods, unless behind closed doors. Even there, people do not jokeabove their breath about kings and emperors. If they joke about them inprint, they take out their laugh in jail, for the press laws are severelyenforced, and the prisons are full of able editors, serious as well ascomic. Lese-majesty is a crime that searches sinners out in every walk oflife, and it is said that in family jars a husband sometimes has the lastword of his wife by accusing her of blaspheming the sovereign, and sohaving her silenced for three months at least behind penitential bars. 

"Think, " said March, "how simply I could adjust any differences ofopinion between us in Dusseldorf. "

"Don't!" his wife implored with a burst of feeling which surprised him. "I want to go home!"

They had been talking over their day, and planning their journey toHolland for the morrow, when it came to this outburst from her in thelast half-hour before bed which they sat prolonging beside their stove. 

"What! And not go to Holland? What is to become of my after-cure?"

"Oh, it's too late for that, now. We've used up the month running about, and tiring ourselves to death. I should like to rest a week--to get intomy berth on the Norumbia and rest!"

"I guess the September gales would have something to say about that. "

"I would risk the September gales. "

LXXII. 

In the morning March came home from his bankers gay with the day'sprovisional sunshine in his heart, and joyously expectant of his wife'spleasure in the letters he was bringing. There was one from each of theirchildren, and there was one from Fulkerson, which March opened and readon the street, so as to intercept any unpleasant news there might be inthem; there were two letters for Mrs. March which he knew without openingwere from Miss Triscoe and Mrs. Adding respectively; Mrs. Adding's, fromthe postmarks, seemed to have been following them about for some time. 

"They're all right at home, " he said. "Do see what those people have beendoing. "

"I believe, " she said, taking a knife from the breakfast tray beside herbed to cut the envelopes, "that you've really cared more about them allalong than I have. "

"No, I've only been anxious to be done with them. "

She got the letters open, and holding one of them up in each hand sheread them impartially and simultaneously; then she flung them both down, and turned her face into her pillow with an impulse of her inalienablegirlishness. "Well, it is too silly. "

March felt authorized to take them up and read them consecutively; whenhe had done, so he did not differ from his wife. In one case, Agatha hadwritten to her dear Mrs. March that she and Burnamy had just that eveningbecome engaged; Mrs. Adding, on her part owned a farther step, andannounced her marriage to Mr. Kenby. Following immemorial usage in suchmatters Kenby had added a postscript affirming his happiness in unsparingterms, and in Agatha's letter there was an avowal of like effect fromBurnamy. Agatha hinted her belief that her father would soon come toregard Burnamy as she did; and Mrs. Adding professed a certainhumiliation in having realized that, after all her misgiving about him, Rose seemed rather relieved than otherwise, as if he were glad to haveher off his hands. 

"Well, " said March, "with these troublesome affairs settled, I don't seewhat there is to keep us in Europe any longer, unless it's the consensusof opinion in Tom, Bella, and Fulkerson, that we ought to stay thewinter. "

"Stay the winter!" Mrs. March rose from her pillow, and clutched the homeletters to her from the abeyance in which they had fallen on the coverletwhile she was dealing with the others. "What do you mean?"

"It seems to have been prompted by a hint you let drop, which Tom haspassed to Bella and Fulkerson. "

"Oh, but that was before we left Carlsbad!" she protested, while shedevoured the letters with her eyes, and continued to denounce theabsurdity of the writers. Her son and daughter both urged that now theirfather and mother were over there, they had better stay as long as theyenjoyed it, and that they certainly ought not to come home without goingto Italy, where they had first met, and revisiting the places which theyhad seen together when they were young engaged people: without that theirsilver wedding journey would not be complete. Her son said thateverything was going well with 'Every Other Week', and both himself andMr. Fulkerson thought his father ought to spend the winter in Italy, andget a thorough rest. "Make a job of it, March, " Fulkerson wrote, "andhave a Sabbatical year while you're at it. You may not get another. "

"Well, I can tell them, " said Mrs. March indignantly, "we shall not doanything of the kind. "

"Then you didn't mean it?"

"Mean it!" She stopped herself with a look at her husband, and askedgently, "Do you want to stay?"

"Well, I don't know, " he answered vaguely. The fact was, he was sick oftravel and of leisure; he was longing to be at home and at work again. But if there was to be any self-sacrifice which could be had, as it were, at a bargain; which could be fairly divided between them, and leave himthe self and her the sacrifice, he was too experienced a husband not tosee the advantage of it, or to refuse the merit. "I thought you wished tostay. "

"Yes, " she sighed, "I did. It has been very, very pleasant, and, ifanything, I have over-enjoyed myself. We have gone romping through itlike two young people, haven't we?"

"You have, " he assented. "I have always felt the weight of my years ingetting the baggage registered; they have made the baggage weigh moreevery time. "

"And I've forgotten mine. Yes, I have. But the years haven't forgottenme, Basil, and now I remember them. I'm tired. It doesn't seem as if Icould ever get up. But I dare say it's only a mood; it may be only acold; and if you wish to stay, why--we will think it over. "

"No, we won't, my dear, " he said, with a generous shame for his hypocrisyif not with a pure generosity. "I've got all the good out of it thatthere was in it, for me, and I shouldn't go home any better six monthshence than I should now. Italy will keep for another time, and so, forthe matter of that, will Holland. "

"No, no!" she interposed. "We won't give up Holland, whatever we do. Icouldn't go home feeling that I had kept you out of your after-cure; andwhen we get there, no doubt the sea air will bring me up so that I shallwant to go to Italy, too, again. Though it seems so far off, now! But goand see when the afternoon train for the Hague leaves, and I shall beready. My mind's quite made up on that point. "

"What a bundle of energy!" said her husband laughing down at her. 

He went and asked about the train to the Hague, but only to satisfy asuperficial conscience; for now he knew that they were both of one mindabout going home. He also looked up the trains for London, and found thatthey could get there by way of Ostend in fourteen hours. Then he wentback to the banker's, and with the help of the Paris-New York Chroniclewhich he found there, he got the sailings of the first steamers home. After that he strolled about the streets for a last impression ofDusseldorf, but it was rather blurred by the constantly recurring pull ofhis thoughts toward America, and he ended by turning abruptly at acertain corner, and going to his hotel. 

He found his wife dressed, but fallen again on her bed, beside which herbreakfast stood still untasted; her smile responded wanly to hisbrightness. "I'm not well, my dear, " she said. "I don't believe I couldget off to the Hague this afternoon. "

"Could you to Liverpool?" he returned. 

"To Liverpool?" she gasped. "What do you mean?"

"Merely that the Cupania is sailing on the twentieth, and I'vetelegraphed to know if we can get a room. I'm afraid it won't be a goodone, but she's the first boat out, and--"

"No, indeed, we won't go to Liverpool, and we will never go home tillyou've had your after-cure in Holland. " She was very firm in this, butshe added, "We will stay another night, here, and go to the Haguetomorrow. Sit down, and let us talk it over. Where were we?"

She lay down on the sofa, and he put a shawl over her. "We were juststarting for Liverpool. "

"No, no we weren't! Don't say such things, dearest! I want you to help mesum it all, up. You think it's been a success, don't you?"

"As a cure?"

"No, as a silver wedding journey?"

"Perfectly howling. "

"I do think we've had a good time. I never expected to enjoy myself somuch again in the world. I didn't suppose I should ever take so muchinterest in anything. It shows that when we choose to get out of our rutwe shall always find life as fresh and delightful as ever. There isnothing to prevent our coming any year, now that Tom's shown himself socapable, and having another silver wedding journey. I don't like to thinkof it's being confined to Germany quite. "

"Oh, I don't know. We can always talk of it as our German-Silver WeddingJourney. "

"That's true. But nobody would understand nowadays what you meant byGerman-silver; it's perfectly gone out. How ugly it was! A sort of greasyyellowish stuff, always getting worn through; I believe it was made wornthrough. Aunt Mary had a castor of it, that I can remember when I was achild; it went into the kitchen long before I grew up. Would a joke likethat console you for the loss of Italy?"

"It would go far to do it. And as a German-Silver Wedding Journey, it'scertainly been very complete. "

"What do you mean?"

"It's given us a representative variety of German cities. First we hadHamburg, you know, a great modern commercial centre. "

"Yes! Go on!"

"Then we had Leipsic, the academic. "

"Yes!"

"Then Carlsbad, the supreme type of a German health resort; thenNuremberg, the mediaeval; then Anspach, the extinct princely capital;then Wurzburg, the ecclesiastical rococo; then Weimar, for the literatureof a great epoch; then imperial Berlin; then Frankfort, the memory of theold free city; then Dusseldorf, the centre of the most poignant personalinterest in the world--I don't see how we could have done better, if we'dplanned it all, and not acted from successive impulses. "

"It's been grand; it's been perfect! As German-Silver Wedding Journeyit's perfect--it seems as if it had been ordered! But I will never letyou give up Holland! No, we will go this afternoon, and when I get toSchevleningen, I'll go to bed, and stay there, till you've completed yourafter-cure. "

"Do you think that will be wildly gay for the convalescent?"

She suddenly began to cry. "Oh, dearest, what shall we do? I feelperfectly broken down. I'm afraid I'm going to be sick--and away fromhome! How could you ever let me overdo, so?" She put her handkerchief toher eyes, and turned her face into the sofa pillow. 

This was rather hard upon him, whom her vivid energy and inextinguishableinterest had not permitted a moment's respite from pleasure since theyleft Carlsbad. But he had been married, too long not to understand thather blame of him was only a form of self-reproach for her ownself-forgetfulness. She had not remembered that she was no longer youngtill she had come to what he saw was a nervous collapse. The fact had itspathos and its poetry which no one could have felt more keenly than he. If it also had its inconvenience and its danger he realized these too. 

"Isabel, " he said, "we are going home. "

"Very well, then it will be your doing. "

"Quite. Do you think you could stand it as far as Cologne? We get thesleeping-car there, and you can lie down the rest of the way to Ostend. "

"This afternoon? Why I'm perfectly strong; it's merely my nerves that aregone. " She sat up, and wiped her eyes. "But Basil! If you're doing thisfor me--"

"I'm doing it for myself, " said March, as he went out of the room. 

She stood the journey perfectly well, and in the passage to Dover shesuffered so little from the rough weather that she was an example to manyrobust matrons who filled the ladies' cabin with the noise of theiranguish during the night. She would have insisted upon taking the firsttrain up to London, if March had not represented that this would notexpedite the sailing of the Cupania, and that she might as well stay theforenoon at the convenient railway hotel, and rest. It was not quite hisideal of repose that the first people they saw in the coffee-room whenthey went to breakfast should be Kenby and Rose Adding, who were havingtheir tea and toast and eggs together in the greatest apparentgood-fellowship. He saw his wife shrink back involuntarily from theencounter, but this was only to gather force for it; and the next momentshe was upon them in all the joy of the surprise. Then March allowedhimself to be as glad as the others both seemed, and he shook hands withKenby while his wife kissed Rose; and they all talked at once. In theconfusion of tongues it was presently intelligible that Mrs. Kenby wasgoing to be down in a few minutes; and Kenby took March into hisconfidence with a smile which was, almost a wink in explaining that heknew how it was with the ladies. He said that Rose and he usually gotdown to breakfast first, and when he had listened inattentively to Mrs. March's apology for being on her way home, he told her that she was luckynot to have gone to Schevleningen, where she and March would have frozento death. He said that they were going to spend September at a littleplace on the English coast, near by, where he had been the day beforewith Rose to look at lodgings, and where you could bathe all through themonth. He was not surprised that the Marches were going home, and said, Well, that was their original plan, wasn't it?

Mrs. Kenby, appearing upon this, pretended to know better, after theoutburst of joyful greeting with the Marches; and intelligently remindedKenby that he knew the Marches had intended to pass the winter in Paris. She was looking extremely pretty, but she wished only to make them seehow well Rose was looking, and she put her arm round his shoulders as shespoke, Schevleningen had done wonders for him, but it was fearfully coldthere, and now they were expecting everything from Westgate, where sheadvised March to come, too, for his after-cure: she recollected in timeto say, She forgot they were on their way home. She added that she didnot know when she should return; she was merely a passenger, now; sheleft everything to the men of the family. She had, in fact, the air ofhaving thrown off every responsibility, but in supremacy, not submission. She was always ordering Kenby about; she sent him for her handkerchief, and her rings which she had left either in the tray of her trunk, or onthe pin-cushion, or on the wash-stand or somewhere, and forbade him tocome back without them. He asked for her keys, and then with a joyfulscream she owned that she had left the door-key in the door and the wholebunch of trunk-keys in her trunk; and Kenby treated it all as thegreatest joke; Rose, too, seemed to think that Kenby would makeeverything come right, and he had lost that look of anxiety which he usedto have; at the most he showed a friendly sympathy for Kenby, for whosesake he seemed mortified at her. He was unable to regard his mother asthe delightful joke which she appeared to Kenby, but that was merelytemperamental; and he was never distressed except when she behaved withunreasonable caprice at Kenby's cost. 

As for Kenby himself he betrayed no dissatisfaction with his fate toMarch. He perhaps no longer regarded his wife as that strong characterwhich he had sometimes wearied March by celebrating; but she was stillthe most brilliant intelligence, and her charm seemed only to have grownwith his perception of its wilful limitations. He did not want to talkabout her so much; he wanted rather to talk about Rose, his health, hiseducation, his nature, and what was best to do for him. The two were onterms of a confidence and affection which perpetually amused Mrs. Kenby, but which left the sympathetic witness nothing to desire in theirrelation. 

They all came to the train when the Marches started up to London, andstood waving to them as they pulled out of the station. "Well, I can'tsee but that's all right, " he said as he sank back in his seat with asigh of relief. "I never supposed we should get out of their marriagehalf so well, and I don't feel that you quite made the match either, mydear. "

She was forced to agree with him that the Kenbys seemed happy together, and that there was nothing to fear for Rose in their happiness. He wouldbe as tenderly cared for by Kenby as he could have been by his mother, and far more judiciously. She owned that she had trembled for him tillshe had seen them all together; and now she should never tremble again. 

"Well?" March prompted, at a certain inconclusiveness in her tone ratherthan her words. 

"Well, you can see that it, isn't ideal. "

"Why isn't it ideal? I suppose you think that the marriage of Burnamy andAgatha Triscoe will be ideal, with their ignorances and inexperiences andillusions. "

"Yes! It's the illusions: no marriage can be perfect without them, and attheir age the Kenbys can't have them. "

"Kenby is a solid mass of illusion. And I believe that people can go andget as many new illusions as they want, whenever they've lost their oldones. "

"Yes, but the new illusions won't wear so well; and in marriage you wantillusions that will last. No; you needn't talk to me. It's all very well, but it isn't ideal. "

March laughed. "Ideal! What is ideal?"

"Going home!" she said with such passion that he had not the heart topoint out that they were merely returning to their old duties, cares andpains, with the worn-out illusion that these would be altogetherdifferent when they took them up again. 

LXXIII. 

In fulfilment of another ideal Mrs. March took straightway to her berthwhen she got on board the Cupania, and to her husband's admiration sheremained there till the day before they reached New York. Her theory wasthat the complete rest would do more than anything else to calm hershaken nerves; and she did not admit into her calculations the chances ofadverse weather which March would not suggest as probable in the lastweek in September. The event justified her unconscious faith. The ship'srun was of unparalled swiftness, even for the Cupania, and of unparalledsmoothness. For days the sea was as sleek as oil; the racks were never onthe tables once; the voyage was of the sort which those who make it nomore believe in at the time than those whom they afterwards weary inboasting of it. 

The ship was very full, but Mrs. March did not show the slightestcuriosity to know who her fellow-passengers were. She said that shewished to be let perfectly alone, even by her own emotions, and for thisreason she forbade March to bring her a list of the passengers till afterthey had left Queenstown lest it should be too exciting. He did not takethe trouble to look it up, therefore; and the first night out he saw noone whom he knew at dinner; but the next morning at breakfast he foundhimself to his great satisfaction at the same table with the Eltwins. They were so much at ease with him that even Mrs. Eltwin took part in thetalk, and told him how they had spent the time of her husband's rigorousafter-cure in Switzerland, and now he was going home much better thanthey had expected. She said they had rather thought of spending thewinter in Europe, but had given it up because they were both a littlehomesick. March confessed that this was exactly the case with his wifeand himself; and he had to add that Mrs. March was not very wellotherwise, and he should be glad to be at home on her account. Therecurrence of the word home seemed to deepen Eltwin's habitual gloom, andMrs. Eltwin hastened to leave the subject of their return for inquiryinto Mrs. March's condition; her interest did not so far overcome hershyness that she ventured to propose a visit to her; and March found thatthe fact of the Eltwins' presence on board did not agitate his wife. Itseemed rather to comfort her, and she said she hoped he would see all hecould of the poor old things. She asked if he had met any one else heknew, and he was able to tell her that there seemed to be a good manyswells on board, and this cheered her very much, though he did not knowthem; she liked to be near the rose, though it was not a flower that shereally cared for. 

She did not ask who the swells were, and March took no trouble to findout. He took no trouble to get a passenger-list, and he had the moretrouble when he tried at last; the lists seemed to have all vanished, asthey have a habit of doing, after the first day; the one that he madeinterest for with the head steward was a second-hand copy, and had no onehe knew in it but the Eltwins. The social solitude, however, was ratherfavorable to certain other impressions. There seemed even more elderlypeople than there were on the Norumbia; the human atmosphere was gray andsober; there was nothing of the gay expansion of the outward voyage;there was little talking or laughing among those autumnal men who weregoing seriously and anxiously home, with faces fiercely set for thecoming grapple; or necks meekly bowed for the yoke. They had eaten theircake, and it had been good, but there remained a discomfort in thedigestion. They sat about in silence, and March fancied that the flownsummer was as dreamlike to each of them as it now was to him. He hated tobe of their dreary company, but spiritually he knew that he was of it;and he vainly turned to cheer himself with the younger passengers. Somematrons who went about clad in furs amused him, for they must have beenunpleasantly warm in their jackets and boas; nothing but the hope ofbeing able to tell the customs inspector with a good conscience that thethings had been worn, would have sustained one lady draped from head tofoot in Astrakhan. 

They were all getting themselves ready for the fray or the play of thecoming winter; but there seemed nothing joyous in the preparation. Therewere many young girls, as there always are everywhere, but there were notmany young men, and such as there were kept to the smoking-room. Therewas no sign of flirtation among them; he would have given much for amoment of the pivotal girl, to see whether she could have brightenedthose gloomy surfaces with her impartial lamp. March wished that he couldhave brought some report from the outer world to cheer his wife, as hedescended to their state-room. They had taken what they could get at theeleventh hour, and they had got no such ideal room as they had in theNorumbia. It was, as Mrs. March graphically said, a basement room. It wason the north side of the ship, which is a cold exposure, and if there hadbeen any sun it could not have got into their window, which was half thetime under water. The green waves, laced with foam, hissed as they ranacross the port; and the electric fan in the corridor moaned like thewind in a gable. 

He felt a sinking of the heart as he pushed the state-room door open, andlooked at his wife lying with her face turned to the wall; and he wasgoing to withdraw, thinking her asleep, when she said quietly, "Are wegoing down?"

"Not that I know of, " he answered with a gayety he did not feel. "ButI'll ask the head steward. "

She put out her hand behind her for him to take, and clutched his fingersconvulsively. "If I'm never any better, you will always remember thishappy, summer, won't you? Oh, it's been such a happy summer! It has beenone long joy, one continued triumph! But it was too late; we were tooold; and it's broken me. "

The time had been when he would have attempted comfort; when he wouldhave tried mocking; but that time was long past; he could only prayinwardly for some sort of diversion, but what it was to be in theirbarren circumstance he was obliged to leave altogether to Providence. Heventured, pending an answer to his prayers upon the question, "Don't youthink I'd better see the doctor, and get you some sort of tonic?"

She suddenly turned and faced him. "The doctor! Why, I'm not sick, Basil!If you can see the purser and get our rooms changed, or do something tostop those waves from slapping against that horrible blinking one-eyedwindow, you can save my life; but no tonic is going to help me. "

She turned her face from him again, and buried it in the bedclothes, while he looked desperately at the racing waves, and the port that seemedto open and shut like a weary eye. 

"Oh, go away!" she implored. "I shall be better presently, but if youstand there like that--Go and see if you can't get some other room, whereI needn't feel as if I were drowning, all the way over. "

He obeyed, so far as to go away at once, and having once started, he didnot stop short of the purser's office. He made an excuse of gettinggreenbacks for some English bank-notes, and then he said casually that hesupposed there would be no chance of having his room on the lower deckchanged for something a little less intimate with the sea. The purser wasnot there to take the humorous view, but he conceived that March wantedsomething higher up, and he was able to offer him a room of those on thepromenade where he had seen swells going in and out, for six hundreddollars. March did not blench, but said he would get his wife to look atit with him, and then he went out somewhat dizzily to take counsel withhimself how he should put the matter to her. She would be sure to askwhat the price of the new room would be, and he debated whether to takeit and tell her some kindly lie about it, or trust to the bracing effectof the sum named in helping restore the lost balance of her nerves. Hewas not so rich that he could throw six hundred dollars away, but theremight be worse things; and he walked up and down thinking. All at once itflashed upon him that he had better see the doctor, anyway, and find outwhether there were not some last hope in medicine before he took thedesperate step before him. He turned in half his course, and ran into alady who had just emerged from the door of the promenade laden withwraps, and who dropped them all and clutched him to save herself fromfalling. 

"Why, Mr. March!" she shrieked. 

"Miss Triscoe!" he returned, in the astonishment which he shared with herto the extent of letting the shawls he had knocked from her hold liebetween them till she began to pick them up herself. Then he joined herand in the relief of their common occupation they contrived to possesseach other of the reason of their presence on, the same boat. She hadsorrowed over Mrs. March's sad state, and he had grieved to hear that herfather was going home because he was not at all well, before they foundthe general stretched out in his steamer-chair, and waiting with a grimimpatience for his daughter. 

"But how is it you're not in the passenger-list?" he inquired of themboth, and Miss Triscoe explained that they had taken their passage at thelast moment, too late, she supposed, to get into the list. They were inLondon, and had run down to Liverpool on the chance of getting berths. Beyond this she was not definite, and there was an absence of Burnamy notonly from her company but from her conversation which mystified Marchthrough all his selfish preoccupations with his wife. She was a girl whohad her reserves, but for a girl who had so lately and rapturouslywritten them of her engagement, there was a silence concerning herbetrothed that had almost positive quality. With his longing to try MissTriscoe upon Mrs. March's malady as a remedial agent, he had now thedesire to try Mrs. March upon Miss Triscoe's mystery as a solvent. Shestood talking to him, and refusing to sit down and be wrapped up in thechair next her father. She said that if he were going to ask Mrs. Marchto let her come to her, it would not be worth while to sit down; and hehurried below. 

"Did you get it?" asked his wife, without looking round, but not soapathetically as before. 

"Oh, yes. That's all right. But now, Isabel, there's something I've gotto tell you. You'd find it out, and you'd better know it at once. "

She turned her face, and asked sternly, "What is it?"

Then he said, with, an almost equal severity, "Miss Triscoe is on board. Miss Triscoe-and-her-father. She wishes to come down and see you. "

Mrs. March sat up and began to twist her hair into shape. "And Burnamy?"

"There is no Burnamy physically, or so far as I can make out, spiritually. She didn't mention him, and I talked at least five minuteswith her. "

"Hand me my dressing-sack, " said Mrs. March, "and poke those things onthe sofa under the berth. Shut up that wash-stand, and pull the curtainacross that hideous window. Stop! Throw those towels into your berth. Putmy shoes, and your slippers into the shoe-bag on the door. Slip thebrushes into that other bag. Beat the dent out of the sofa cushion thatyour head has made. Now!"

"Then--then you will see her?"

"See her!"

Her voice was so terrible that he fled before it, and he returned withMiss Triscoe in a dreamlike simultaneity. He remembered, as he led theway into his corridor, to apologize for bringing her down into a basementroom. 

"Oh, we're in the basement, too; it was all we could get, " she said inwords that ended within the state-room he opened to her. Then he wentback and took her chair and wraps beside her father. 

He let the general himself lead the way up to his health, which he wasnot slow in reaching, and was not quick in leaving. He reminded March ofthe state he had seen him in at Wurzburg, and he said it had gone frombad to worse with him. At Weimar he had taken to his bed and merelyescaped from it with his life. Then they had tried Schevleningen for aweek, where, he said in a tone of some injury, they had rather thoughtthey might find them, the Marches. The air had been poison to him, andthey had come over to England with some notion of Bournemouth; but thedoctor in London had thought not, and urged their going home. "All Europeis damp, you know, and dark as a pocket in winter, " he ended. 

There had been nothing about Burnamy, and March decided that he must waitto see his wife if he wished to know anything, when the general, who hadbeen silent, twisted his head towards him, and said without regard to thecontext, "It was complicated, at Weimar, by that young man in the mostdevilish way. Did my daughter write to Mrs. March about--Well it came tonothing, after all; and I don't understand how, to this day. I doubt ifthey do. It was some sort of quarrel, I suppose. I wasn't consulted inthe matter either way. It appears that parents are not consulted in thesetrifling affairs, nowadays. " He had married his daughter's mother in opendefiance of her father; but in the glare of his daughter's wilfulnessthis fact had whitened into pious obedience. "I dare say I shall be told, by-and-by, and shall be expected to approve of the result. "

A fancy possessed March that by operation of temperamental laws GeneralTriscoe was no more satisfied with Burnamy's final rejection than withhis acceptance. If the engagement was ever to be renewed, it might beanother thing; but as it stood, March divined a certain favor for theyoung man in the general's attitude. But the affair was altogether toodelicate for comment; the general's aristocratic frankness in dealingwith it might have gone farther if his knowledge had been greater; but inany case March did not see how he could touch it. He could only say, Hehad always liked Burnamy, himself. 

He had his good qualities, the general owned. He did not profess tounderstand the young men of our time; but certainly the fellow had theinstincts of a gentleman. He had nothing to say against him, unless inthat business with that man--what was his name?

"Stoller?" March prompted. "I don't excuse him in that, but I don't blamehim so much, either. If punishment means atonement, he had theopportunity of making that right very suddenly, and if pardon meansexpunction, then I don't see why that offence hasn't been pretty wellwiped out. 

"Those things are not so simple as they used to seem, " said the general, with a seriousness beyond his wont in things that did not immediatelyconcern his own comfort or advantage. 

LXXVI. 

In the mean time Mrs. March and Miss Triscoe were discussing anotheroffence of Burnamy's. 

"It wasn't, " said the girl, excitedly, after a plunge through all theminor facts to the heart of the matter, "that he hadn't a perfect rightto do it, if he thought I didn't care for him. I had refused him atCarlsbad, and I had forbidden him to speak to me about--on the subject. But that was merely temporary, and he ought to have known it. He ought tohave known that I couldn't accept him, on the spur of the moment, thatway; and when he had come back, after going away in disgrace, before hehad done anything to justify himself. I couldn't have kept myself-respect; and as it was I had the greatest difficulty; and he oughtto have seen it. Of course he said afterwards that he didn't see it. Butwhen--when I found out that SHE had been in Weimar, and all that time, while I had been suffering in Carlsbad and Wurzburg, and longing to seehim--let him know how I was really feeling--he was flirting withthat--that girl, then I saw that he was a false nature, and I determinedto put an end to everything. And that is what I did; and I shall alwaysthink I--did right--and--"

The rest was lost in Agatha's handkerchief, which she put up to her eyes. Mrs. March watched her from her pillow keeping the girl's unoccupied handin her own, and softly pressing it till the storm was past sufficientlyto allow her to be heard. 

Then she said, "Men are very strange--the best of them. And from the veryfact that he was disappointed, he would be all the more apt to rush intoa flirtation with somebody else. "

Miss Triscoe took down her handkerchief from a face that had certainlynot been beautified by grief. "I didn't blame him for the flirting; ornot so much. It was his keeping it from me afterwards. He ought to havetold me the very first instant we were engaged. But he didn't. He let itgo on, and if I hadn't happened on that bouquet I might never have knownanything about it. That is what I mean by--a false nature. I wouldn'thave minded his deceiving me; but to let me deceive myself--Oh, it wastoo much!"

Agatha hid her face in her handkerchief again. She was perching on theedge of the berth, and Mrs. March said, with a glance, which she did notsee, toward the sofa, "I'm afraid that's rather a hard seat for you. 

"Oh, no, thank you! I'm perfectly comfortable--I like it--if you don'tmind?"

Mrs. March pressed her hand for answer, and after another little delay, sighed and said, "They are not like us, and we cannot help it. They aremore temporizing. "

"How do you mean?" Agatha unmasked again. 

"They can bear to keep things better than we can, and they trust to timeto bring them right, or to come right of themselves. "

"I don't think Mr. March would trust things to come right of themselves!"said Agatha in indignant accusal of Mrs. March's sincerity. 

"Ah, that's just what he would do, my dear, and has done, all along; andI don't believe we could have lived through without it: we should havequarrelled ourselves into the grave!"

"Mrs. March!"

"Yes, indeed. I don't mean that he would ever deceive me. But he wouldlet things go on, and hope that somehow they would come right without anyfuss. "

"Do you mean that he would let anybody deceive themselves?"

"I'm afraid he would--if he thought it would come right. It used to be aterrible trial to me; and it is yet, at times when I don't remember thathe means nothing but good and kindness by it. Only the other day inAnsbach--how long ago it seems!--he let a poor old woman give him herson's address in Jersey City, and allowed her to believe he would lookhim up when we got back and tell him we had seen her. I don't believe, unless I keep right round after him, as we say in New England, that he'llever go near the man. "

Agatha looked daunted, but she said, "That is a very different thing. "

"It isn't a different kind of thing. And it shows what men are, --thesweetest and best of them, that is. They are terribly apt tobe--easy-going. "

"Then you think I was all wrong?" the girl asked in a tremor. 

"No, indeed! You were right, because you really expected perfection ofhim. You expected the ideal. And that's what makes all the trouble, inmarried life: we expect too much of each other--we each expect more ofthe other than we are willing to give or can give. If I had to begin overagain, I should not expect anything at all, and then I should be sure ofbeing radiantly happy. But all this talking and all this writing aboutlove seems to turn our brains; we know that men are not perfect, even atour craziest, because women are not, but we expect perfection of them;and they seem to expect it of us, poor things! If we could keep on afterwe are in love just as we were before we were in love, and take nicethings as favors and surprises, as we did in the beginning! But we getmore and more greedy and exacting--"

"Do you think I was too exacting in wanting him to tell me everythingafter we were engaged?"

"No, I don't say that. But suppose he had put it off till you weremarried?" Agatha blushed a little, but not painfully, "Would it have beenso bad? Then you might have thought that his flirting up to the lastmoment in his desperation was a very good joke. You would have understoodbetter just how it was, and it might even have made you fonder of him. You might have seen that he had flirted with some one else because he wasso heart-broken about you. "

"Then you believe that if I could have waited till--till--but when I hadfound out, don't you see I couldn't wait? It would have been all verywell if I hadn't known it till then. But as I did know it. Don't yousee?"

"Yes, that certainly complicated it, " Mrs. March admitted. "But I don'tthink, if he'd been a false nature, he'd have owned up as he did. Yousee, he didn't try to deny it; and that's a great point gained. "

"Yes, that is true, " said Agatha, with conviction. "I saw thatafterwards. But you don't think, Mrs. March, that I was unjust or--orhasty?"

"No, indeed! You couldn't have done differently under the circumstances. You may be sure he felt that--he is so unselfish and generous--" Agathabegan to weep into her handkerchief again; Mrs. March caressed her hand. "And it will certainly come right if you feel as you do. "

"No, " the girl protested. "He can never forgive me; it's all over, everything is over. It would make very little difference to me, whathappened now--if the steamer broke her shaft, or anything. But if I canonly believe I wasn't unjust--"

Mrs. March assured her once more that she had behaved with absoluteimpartiality; and she proved to her by a process of reasoning quiteirrefragable that it was only a question of time, with which place hadnothing to do, when she and Burnamy should come together again, and allshould be made right between them. The fact that she did not know wherehe was, any more than Mrs. March herself, had nothing to do with theresult; that was a mere detail, which would settle itself. She clinchedher argument by confessing that her own engagement had been broken off, and that it had simply renewed itself. All you had to do was to keepwilling it, and waiting. There was something very mysterious in it. 

"And how long was it till--" Agatha faltered. 

"Well, in our ease it was two years. "

"Oh!" said the girl, but Mrs. March hastened to reassure her. 

"But our case was very peculiar. I could see afterwards that it needn'thave been two months, if I had been willing to acknowledge at once that Iwas in the wrong. I waited till we met. "

"If I felt that I was in the wrong, I should write, " said Agatha. "Ishouldn't care what he thought of my doing it. "

"Yes, the great thing is to make sure that you were wrong. "

They remained talking so long, that March and the general had exhaustedall the topics of common interest, and had even gone through those theydid not care for. At last the general said, "I'm afraid my daughter willtire Mrs. March. "

"Oh, I don't think she'll tire my wife. But do you want her?"

"Well, when you're going down. "

"I think I'll take a turn about the deck, and start my circulation, " saidMarch, and he did so before he went below. 

He found his wife up and dressed, and waiting provisionally on the sofa. "I thought I might as well go to lunch, " she said, and then she told himabout Agatha and Burnamy, and the means she had employed to comfort andencourage the girl. "And now, dearest, I want you to find out whereBurnamy is, and give him a hint. You will, won't you! If you could haveseen how unhappy she was!"

"I don't think I should have cared, and I'm certainly not going tomeddle. I think Burnamy has got no more than he deserved, and that he'swell rid of her. I can't imagine a broken engagement that would morecompletely meet my approval. As the case stands, they have my blessing. "

"Don't say that, dearest! You know you don't mean it. "

"I do; and I advise you to keep your hands off. You've done all and morethan you ought to propitiate Miss Triscoe. You've offered yourself up, and you've offered me up--"

"No, no, Basil! I merely used you as an illustration of what menwere--the best of them. "

"And I can't observe, " he continued, "that any one else has beenconsidered in the matter. Is Miss Triscoe the sole sufferer by Burnamy'sflirtation? What is the matter with a little compassion for the pivotalgirl?"

"Now, you know you're not serious, " said his wife; and though he wouldnot admit this, he could not be seriously sorry for the new interestwhich she took in the affair. There was no longer any question ofchanging their state-room. Under the tonic influence of the excitementshe did not go back to her berth after lunch, and she was up later afterdinner than he could have advised. She was absorbed in Agatha, but in herliberation from her hypochondria, she began also to make a comparativestudy of the American swells, in the light of her late experience withthe German highhotes. It is true that none of the swells gave her theopportunity of examining them at close range, as the highhotes had done. They kept to their state-rooms mostly, where, after he thought she couldbear it, March told her how near he had come to making her their equal byan outlay of six hundred dollars. She now shuddered at the thought; butshe contended that in their magnificent exclusiveness they could givepoints to European princes; and that this showed again how when Americansdid try to do a thing, they beat the world. Agatha Triscoe knew who theywere, but she did not know them; they belonged to another kind of set;she spoke of them as "rich people, " and she seemed content to keep awayfrom them with Mrs. March and with the shy, silent old wife of MajorEltwin, to whom March sometimes found her talking. 

He never found her father talking with Major Eltwin. General Triscoe hadhis own friends in the smoking-room, where he held forth in a certaincorner on the chances of the approaching election in New York, and mockedtheir incredulity when he prophesied the success of Tammany and thereturn of the King. March himself much preferred Major Eltwin to thegeneral and his friends; he lived back in the talk of the Ohioan into hisown younger years in Indiana, and he was amused and touched to find howmuch the mid-Western life seemed still the same as he had known. Theconditions had changed, but not so much as they had changed in the Eastand the farther West. The picture that the major drew of them in his ownregion was alluring; it made March homesick; though he knew that heshould never go back to his native section. There was the comfort of kindin the major; and he had a vein of philosophy, spare but sweet, whichMarch liked; he liked also the meekness which had come through sorrowupon a spirit which had once been proud. 

They had both the elderly man's habit of early rising, and they usuallyfound themselves together waiting impatiently for the cup of coffee, ingenuously bad, which they served on the Cupania not earlier than halfpast six, in strict observance of a rule of the line discouraging topeople of their habits. March admired the vileness of the decoction, which he said could not be got anywhere out of the British Empire, and heasked Eltwin the first morning if he had noticed how instantly on theChannel boat they had dropped to it and to the sour, heavy, soddenBritish bread, from the spirited and airy Continental tradition of coffeeand rolls. 

The major confessed that he was no great hand to notice such things, andhe said he supposed that if the line had never lost a passenger, and gotyou to New York in six days it had a right to feed you as it pleased; hesurmised that if they could get their airing outside before they tooktheir coffee, it would give the coffee a chance to taste better; and thiswas what they afterwards did. They met, well buttoned and well mined up, on the promenade when it was yet so early that they were not at once sureof each other in the twilight, and watched the morning planets pale eastand west before the sun rose. Sometimes there were no paling planets andno rising sun, and a black sea, ridged with white, tossed under a lowdark sky with dim rifts. 

One morning, they saw the sun rise with a serenity and majesty which itrarely has outside of the theatre. The dawn began over that sea which waslike the rumpled canvas imitations of the sea on the stage, under longmauve clouds bathed in solemn light. Above these, in the pale tender sky, two silver stars hung, and the steamer's smoke drifted across them like athin dusky veil. To the right a bank of dun cloud began to burn crimson, and to burn brighter till it was like a low hill-side full of gorgeousrugosities fleeced with a dense dwarfish growth of autumnal shrubs. Thewhole eastern heaven softened and flushed through diaphanous mists; thewest remained a livid mystery. The eastern masses and flakes of cloudbegan to kindle keenly; but the stars shone clearly, and then one star, till the tawny pink hid it. All the zenith reddened, but still the sundid not show except in the color of the brilliant clouds. At last thelurid horizon began to burn like a flame-shot smoke, and a fiercelybright disc edge pierced its level, and swiftly defined itself as thesun's orb. 

Many thoughts went through March's mind; some of them were sad, but insome there was a touch of hopefulness. It might have been that beautywhich consoled him for his years; somehow he felt himself, if no longeryoung, a part of the young immortal frame of things. His state wasindefinable, but he longed to hint at it to his companion. 

"Yes, " said Eltwin, with a long deep sigh. "I feel as if I could walk outthrough that brightness and find her. I reckon that such hopes wouldn'tbe allowed to lie to us; that so many ages of men couldn't have fooledthemselves so. I'm glad I've seen this. " He was silent and they bothremained watching the rising sun till they could not bear its splendor. "Now, " said the major, "it must be time for that mud, as you call it. "Over their coffee and crackers at the end of the table which they had tothemselves, he resumed. "I was thinking all the time--we seem to thinkhalf a dozen things at once, and this was one of them--about a piece ofbusiness I've got to settle when I reach home; and perhaps you can adviseme about it; you're an editor. I've got a newspaper on my hands; I reckonit would be a pretty good thing, if it had a chance; but I don't knowwhat to do with it: I got it in trade with a fellow who has to go Westfor his lungs, but he's staying till I get back. What's become of thatyoung chap--what's his name?--that went out with us?"

"Burnamy?" prompted March, rather breathlessly. 

"Yes. Couldn't he take hold of it? I rather liked him. He's smart, isn'the?"

"Very, " said March. "But I don't know where he is. I don't know that hewould go into the country--. But he might, if--"

They entered provisionally into the case, and for argument's sakesupposed that Burnamy would take hold of the major's paper if he could begot at. It really looked to March like a good chance for him, on Eltwin'sshowing; but he was not confident of Burnamy's turning up very soon, andhe gave the major a pretty clear notion why, by entering into the youngfellow's history for the last three months. 

"Isn't it the very irony of fate?" he said to his wife when he found herin their room with a cup of the same mud he had been drinking, andreported the facts to her. 

"Irony?" she said, with all the excitement he could have imagined ordesired. "Nothing of the kind. It's a leading, if ever there was one. Itwill be the easiest thing in the world to find Burnamy. And out there shecan sit on her steps!"

He slowly groped his way to her meaning, through the hypothesis ofBurnamy's reconciliation and marriage with Agatha Triscoe, and theirsettlement in Major Eltwin's town under social conditions that implied ahabit of spending the summer evenings on their front porch. While he wasdoing this she showered him with questions and conjectures andrequisitions in which nothing but the impossibility of going ashore savedhim from the instant devotion of all his energies to a world-wide, inquiry into Burnamy's whereabouts. 

The next morning he was up before Major Eltwin got out, and found thesecond-cabin passengers free of the first-cabin promenade at an hour whentheir superiors were not using it. As he watched these inferiors, decent-looking, well-clad men and women, enjoying their privilege with afurtive air, and with stolen glances at him, he asked himself in whatsort he was their superior, till the inquiry grew painful. Then he rosefrom his chair, and made his way to the place where the material barrierbetween them was lifted, and interested himself in a few of them whoseemed too proud to avail themselves of his society on the terms made. Afigure seized his attention with a sudden fascination of conjecture andrejection: the figure of a tall young man who came out on the promenadeand without looking round, walked swiftly away to the bow of the ship, and stood there, looking down at the water in an attitude which wasbewilderingly familiar. His movement, his posture, his dress, even, wasthat of Burnamy, and March, after a first flush of pleasure, felt asickening repulsion in the notion of his presence. It would have beensuch a cheap performance on the part of life, which has all sorts ofchances at command, and need not descend to the poor tricks ofsecond-rate fiction; and he accused Burnamy of a complicity in the badtaste of the affair, though he realized, when he reflected, that if itwere really Burnamy he must have sailed in as much unconsciousness of theTriscoes as he himself had done. He had probably got out of money and hadhurried home while he had still enough to pay the second-cabin fare onthe first boat back. Clearly he was not to blame, but life was to blamefor such a shabby device; and March felt this so keenly that he wished toturn from the situation, and have nothing to do with it. He kept movingtoward him, drawn by the fatal attraction, and at a few paces' distancethe young man whirled about and showed him the face of a stranger. 

March made some witless remark on the rapid course of the ship as it cutits way through the water of the bow; the stranger answered with a strongLancashire accent; and in the talk which followed, he said he was goingout to see the cotton-mills at Fall River and New Bedford, and he seemedhopeful of some advice or information from March; then he said he must goand try to get his Missus out; March understood him to mean his wife, andhe hurried down to his own, to whom he related his hair-breadth escapefrom Burnamy. 

"I don't call it an escape at all!" she declared. "I call it the greatestpossible misfortune. If it had been Burnamy we could have brought themtogether at once, just when she has seen so clearly that she was in thewrong, and is feeling all broken up. There wouldn't have been anydifficulty about his being in the second-cabin. We could have contrivedto have them meet somehow. If the worst came to the worst you could havelent him money to pay the difference, and got him into the first-cabin. "

"I could have taken that six-hundred-dollar room for him, " said March, "and then he could have eaten with the swells. "

She answered that now he was teasing; that he was fundamentally incapableof taking anything seriously; and in the end he retired before thestewardess bringing her first coffee, with a well-merited feeling that ifit had not been for his triviality the young Lancashireman would reallyhave been Burnamy. 

LXXV. 

Except for the first day and night out from Queenstown, when the shiprolled and pitched with straining and squeaking noises, and a thumping ofthe lifted screws, there was no rough weather, and at last the ocean waslivid and oily, with a long swell, on which she swayed with noperceptible motion save from her machinery. 

Most of the seamanship seemed to be done after dark, or in those earlyhours when March found the stewards cleaning the stairs, and the sailorsscouring the promenades. He made little acquaintance with hisfellow-passengers. One morning he almost spoke with an old Quaker ladywhom he joined in looking at the Niagara flood which poured from thechurning screws; but he did not quite get the words out. On the contraryhe talked freely with an American who, bred horses on a farm nearBoulogne, and was going home to the Horse Show; he had been thirty-fiveyears out of the country, but he had preserved his Yankee accent in allits purity, and was the most typical-looking American on board. Now andthen March walked up and down with a blond Mexican whom he found of theusual well-ordered Latin intelligence, but rather flavorless; at times hesat beside a nice Jew, who talked agreeably, but only about business; andhe philosophized the race as so tiresome often because it seemed so oftenwithout philosophy. He made desperate attempts at times to interesthimself in the pool-selling in the smoking-room where the betting on theship's wonderful run was continual. 

He thought that people talked less and less as they drew nearer home; buton the last day out there was a sudden expansion, and some whom he hadnot spoken with voluntarily addressed him. The sweet, soft air was likemidsummer the water rippled gently, without a swell, blue under the clearsky, and the ship left a wide track that was silver in the sun. Therewere more sail; the first and second class baggage was got up and piledalong the steerage deck. 

Some people dressed a little more than usual for the last dinner whichwas earlier than usual, so as to be out of the way against the arrivalwhich had been variously predicted at from five to seven-thirty. Anindescribable nervousness culminated with the appearance of the customsofficers on board, who spread their papers on cleared spaces of thedining-tables, and summoned the passengers to declare that they hadnothing to declare, as a preliminary to being searched like thieves atthe dock. 

This ceremony proceeded while the Cupania made her way up the Narrows, and into the North River, where the flare of lights from the crazy steepsand cliffs of architecture on the New York shore seemed a persistence ofthe last Fourth of July pyrotechnics. March blushed for the grotesquesplendor of the spectacle, and was confounded to find some Englishmenadmiring it, till he remembered that aesthetics were not the strong pointof our race. His wife sat hand in hand with Miss Triscoe, and from timeto time made him count the pieces of small baggage in the keeping oftheir steward; while General Triscoe held aloof in a sarcastic calm. 

The steamer groped into her dock; the gangways were lifted to her side;the passengers fumbled and stumbled down their incline, and at the bottomthe Marches found themselves respectively in the arms of their son anddaughter. They all began talking at once, and ignoring and trying toremember the Triscoes to whom the young Marches were presented. Bella didher best to be polite to Agatha, and Tom offered to get an inspector forthe general at the same time as for his father. Then March, remorsefullyremembered the Eltwins, and looked about for them, so that his son mightget them an inspector too. He found the major already in the hands of aninspector, who was passing all his pieces after carelessly looking intoone: the official who received the declarations on board had noted aGrand Army button like his own in the major's lapel, and had marked hisfellow-veteran's paper with the mystic sign which procures for the bearerthe honor of being promptly treated as a smuggler, while the less favoredhave to wait longer for this indignity at the hands of their government. When March's own inspector came he was as civil and lenient as ourhateful law allows; when he had finished March tried to put a bank-notein his hand, and was brought to a just shame by his refusal of it. Thebed-room steward keeping guard over the baggage helped put-it togetherafter the search, and protested that March had feed him so handsomelythat he would stay there with it as long as they wished. This partlyrestored March's self-respect, and he could share in General Triscoe'sindignation with the Treasury ruling which obliged him to pay duty on hisown purchases in excess of the hundred-dollar limit, though his daughterhad brought nothing, and they jointly came far within the limit for two. 

He found that the Triscoes were going to a quiet old hotel on the way toStuyvesant Square, quite in his own neighborhood, and he quickly arrangedfor all the ladies and the general to drive together while he was tofollow with his son on foot and by car. They got away from the scene ofthe customs' havoc while the steamer shed, with its vast darkness dimlylit by its many lamps, still showed like a battle-field where theinspectors groped among the scattered baggage like details from thevictorious army searching for the wounded. His son clapped him on theshoulder when he suggested this notion, and said he was the same oldfather; and they got home as gayly together as the dispiriting influencesof the New York ugliness would permit. It was still in those good anddecent times, now so remote, when the city got something for the moneypaid out to keep its streets clean, and those they passed through werenot foul but merely mean. 

The ignoble effect culminated when they came into Broadway, and found itssidewalks, at an hour when those of any European metropolis would havebeen brilliant with life, as unpeopled as those of a minor country town, while long processions of cable-cars carted heaps of men and women up anddown the thoroughfare amidst the deformities of the architecture. 

The next morning the March family breakfasted late after an eveningprolonged beyond midnight in spite of half-hourly agreements that nowthey must really all go to bed. The children had both to recognize againand again how well their parents were looking; Tom had to tell his fatherabout the condition of 'Every Other Week'; Bella had to explain to hermother how sorry her husband was that he could not come on to meet themwith her, but was coming a week later to take her home, and then shewould know the reason why they could not all, go back to Chicago withhim: it was just the place for her father to live, for everybody to live. At breakfast she renewed the reasoning with which she had maintained herposition the night before; the travellers entered into a full expressionof their joy at being home again; March asked what had become of thatstray parrot which they had left in the tree-top the morning theystarted; and Mrs. March declared that this was the last Silver WeddingJourney she ever wished to take, and tried to convince them all that shehad been on the verge of nervous collapse when she reached the ship. Theysat at table till she discovered that it was very nearly eleven o'clock, and said it was disgraceful. 

Before they rose, there was a ring at the door, and a card was brought into Tom. He glanced at it, and said to his father, "Oh, yes! This man hasbeen haunting the office for the last three days. He's got to leaveto-day, and as it seemed to be rather a case of life and death with him, I said he'd probably find you here this morning. But if you don't want tosee him, I can put him off till afternoon, I suppose. "

He tossed the card to his father, who looked at it quietly, and then gaveit to his wife. "Perhaps I'd as well see him?"

"See him!" she returned in accents in which all the intensity of her soulwas centred. By an effort of self-control which no words can convey ajust sense of she remained with her children, while her husband with alaugh more teasing than can be imagined went into the drawing-room tomeet Burnamy. 

The poor fellow was in an effect of belated summer as to clothes, and helooked not merely haggard but shabby. He made an effort for dignity aswell as gayety, however, in stating himself to March, with many apologiesfor his persistency. But, he said, he was on his way West, and he wasanxious to know whether there was any chance of his 'Kasper Hauler' paperbeing taken if he finished it up. March would have been a farharder-hearted editor than he was, if he could have discouraged thesuppliant before him. He said he would take the Kasper Hauler paper andadd a band of music to the usual rate of ten dollars a thousand words. Then Burnamy's dignity gave way, if not his gayety; he began to laugh, and suddenly he broke down and confessed that he had come home in thesteerage; and was at his last cent, beyond his fare to Chicago. His strawhat looked like a withered leaf in the light of his sad facts; his thinovercoat affected March's imagination as something like the diaphanouscast shell of a locust, hopelessly resumed for comfort at the approach ofautumn. He made Burnamy sit down, after he had once risen, and he toldhim of Major Eltwin's wish to see him; and he promised to go round withhim to the major's hotel before the Eltwins left town that afternoon. 

While he prolonged the interview in this way, Mrs. March was kept frombreaking in upon them only by the psychical experiment which she wasmaking with the help and sympathy of her daughter at the window of thedining-room which looked up Sixteenth Street. At the first hint she gaveof the emotional situation which Burnamy was a main part of, her son;with the brutal contempt of young men for other young men's love affairs, said he must go to the office; he bade his mother tell his father therewas no need of his coming down that day, and he left the two womentogether. This gave the mother a chance to develop the whole fact to thedaughter with telegrammic rapidity and brevity, and then to enrich thefirst-outline with innumerable details, while they both remained at thewindow, and Mrs. March said at two-minutely intervals, with no sense ofiteration for either of them, "I told her to come in the morning, if shefelt like it, and I know she will. But if she doesn't, I shall say thereis nothing in fate, or Providence either. At any rate I'm going to stayhere and keep longing for her, and we'll see whether there's anything inthat silly theory of your father's. I don't believe there is, " she said, to be on the safe side. 

Even when she saw Agatha Triscoe enter the park gate on Rutherford Place, she saved herself from disappointment by declaring that she was notcoming across to their house. As the girl persisted in coming and coming, and at last came so near that she caught sight of Mrs. March at thewindow and nodded, the mother turned ungratefully upon her daughter, anddrove her away to her own room, so that no society detail should hinderthe divine chance. She went to the door herself when Agatha rang, andthen she was going to open the way into the parlor where March was stillcloseted with Burnamy, and pretend that she had not known they werethere. But a soberer second thought than this prevailed, and she told thegirl who it was that was within and explained the accident of hispresence. "I think, " she said nobly, "that you ought to have the chanceof going away if you don't wish to meet him. "

The girl, with that heroic precipitation which Mrs. March had noted inher from the first with regard to what she wanted to do, when Burnamy wasin question, answered, "But I do wish to meet him, Mrs. March. "

While they stood looking at each other, March came out to ask his wife ifshe would see Burnamy, and she permitted herself so much stratagem as tosubstitute Agatha, after catching her husband aside and subduing hisproposed greeting of the girl to a hasty handshake. 

Half an hour later she thought it time to join the young people, urgedlargely by the frantic interest of her daughter. But she returned fromthe half-open door without entering. "I couldn't bring myself to break inon the poor things. They are standing at the window together looking overat St. George's. "

Bella silently clasped her hands. March gave cynical laugh, and said, "Well we are in for it, my dear. " Then he added, "I hope they'll take uswith them on their Silver Wedding Journey. "

PG EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

 Declare that they had nothing to declare Despair which any perfection inspires Disingenuous, hypocritical passion of love Fundamentally incapable of taking anything seriously Held aloof in a sarcastic calm Illusions: no marriage can be perfect without them Married life: we expect too much of each other Not do to be perfectly frank with one's own country Offence which any difference of taste was apt to give him Passionate desire for excess in a bad thing Puddles of the paths were drying up with the haste Race seemed so often without philosophy Self-sacrifice which could be had, as it were, at a bargain She always came to his defence when he accused himself

PG EDITORS BOOKMARKS FOR THE COMPLETE TRILOGY:

 Affected absence of mind Affectional habit All the loveliness that exists outside of you, dearest is little All luckiest or the unluckiest, the healthiest or the sickest Americans are hungrier for royalty than anybody else Amusing world, if you do not refuse to be amused Anticipative homesickness Anticipative reprisal Any sort of stuff was good enough to make a preacher out of Appearance made him doubt their ability to pay so much Artists never do anything like other people As much of his story as he meant to tell without prompting At heart every man is a smuggler Bad wars, or what are comically called good wars Ballast of her instinctive despondency Be good, sweet man, and let who will be clever Beautiful with the radiance of loving and being loved Bewildering labyrinth of error Biggest place is always the kindest as well as the cruelest Brag of his wife, as a good husband always does Brown-stone fronts But when we make that money here, no one loses it Buttoned about him as if it concealed a bad conscience Calm of those who have logic on their side Civilly protested and consented Clinging persistence of such natures Coldly and inaccessibly vigilant Collective silence which passes for sociality Comfort of the critical attitude Conscience weakens to the need that isn't Considerable comfort in holding him accountable Courage hadn't been put to the test Courtship Deadly summer day Death is peace and pardon Death is an exile that no remorse and no love can reach Decided not to let the facts betray themselves by chance Declare that they had nothing to declare Despair which any perfection inspires Did not idealize him, but in the highest effect she realized him Dinner unites the idea of pleasure and duty Disingenuous, hypocritical passion of love Dividend: It's a chicken before it's hatched Does any one deserve happiness Does anything from without change us? Dog that had plainly made up his mind to go mad Effort to get on common ground with an inferior Europe, where society has them, as it were, in a translation Evil which will not let a man forgive his victim Explained perhaps too fully Extract what consolation lurks in the irreparable Family buryin' grounds Favorite stock of his go up and go down under the betting Feeblest-minded are sure to lead the talk Feeling rather ashamed, --for he had laughed too Feeling of contempt for his unambitious destination Flavors not very sharply distinguished from one another Fundamentally incapable of taking anything seriously Futility of travel Gayety, which lasted beyond any apparent reason for it Glad; which considering, they ceased to be Got their laugh out of too many things in life Guilty rapture of a deliberate dereliction Had learned not to censure the irretrievable Had no opinions that he was not ready to hold in abeyance Handsome pittance Happiness is so unreasonable Happiness built upon and hedged about with misery He expected to do the wrong thing when left to his own devices He buys my poverty and not my will Headache darkens the universe while it lasts Heart that forgives but does not forget Held aloof in a sarcastic calm Helplessness begets a sense of irresponsibility Helplessness accounts for many heroic facts in the world Hemmed round with this eternal darkness of death Homage which those who have not pay to those who have Honest selfishness Hopeful recklessness How much can a man honestly earn without wronging or oppressing Humanity may at last prevail over nationality Hurry up and git well--or something Hypothetical difficulty I cannot endure this--this hopefulness of yours I want to be sorry upon the easiest possible terms I supposed I had the pleasure of my wife's acquaintance I'm not afraid--I'm awfully demoralized If you dread harm enough it is less likely to happen Ignorant of her ignorance Illusions: no marriage can be perfect without them Impertinent prophecies of their enjoying it so much Indispensable Indulge safely in the pleasures of autobiography Intrepid fancy that they had confronted fate It had come as all such calamities come, from nothing It must be your despair that helps you to bear up It don't do any good to look at its drawbacks all the time It 's the same as a promise, your not saying you wouldn't Jesting mood in the face of all embarrassments Justice must be paid for at every step in fees and costs Less intrusive than if he had not been there Less certain of everything that I used to be sure of Life was like the life at a sea-side hotel, but more monotonous Life of the ship, like the life of the sea: a sodden monotony Life has taught him to truckle and trick Long life of holidays which is happy marriage Love of justice hurry them into sympathy with violence Made money and do not yet know that money has made them Madness of sight-seeing, which spoils travel Man's willingness to abide in the present Married life: we expect too much of each other Married the whole mystifying world of womankind Married for no other purpose than to avoid being an old maid Marry for love two or three times Monologue to which the wives of absent-minded men resign Muddy draught which impudently affected to be coffee Nervous woes of comfortable people Never-blooming shrub Never could have an emotion without desiring to analyze it Night so bad that it was worse than no night at all No man deserves to sufer at the hands of another No longer the gross appetite for novelty No right to burden our friends with our decisions Not do to be perfectly frank with one's own country Nothing so apt to end in mutual dislike, --except gratitude Nothing so sad to her as a bride, unless it's a young mother Novelists, who really have the charge of people's thinking Oblivion of sleep Offence which any difference of taste was apt to give him Only so much clothing as the law compelled Only one of them was to be desperate at a time Our age caricatures our youth Parkman Passionate desire for excess in a bad thing Patience with mediocrity putting on the style of genius Patronizing spirit of travellers in a foreign country People that have convictions are difficult Person talks about taking lessons, as if they could learn it Poverty as hopeless as any in the world Prices fixed by his remorse Puddles of the paths were drying up with the haste Race seemed so often without philosophy Recipes for dishes and diseases Reckless and culpable optimism Reconciliation with death which nature brings to life at last Rejoice in everything that I haven't done Rejoice as much at a non-marriage as a marriage Repeated the nothings they had said already Respect for your mind, but she don't think you've got any sense Say when he is gone that the woman gets along better without him Seemed the last phase of a world presently to be destroyed Seeming interested in points necessarily indifferent to him Self-sufficiency, without its vulgarity Self-sacrifice which could be had, as it were, at a bargain Servant of those he loved She always came to his defence when he accused himself She cares for him: that she was so cold shows that She could bear his sympathy, but not its expression Shouldn't ca' fo' the disgrace of bein' poo'--its inconvenience Sigh with which ladies recognize one another's martyrdom So hard to give up doing anything we have meant to do So old a world and groping still Society: All its favors are really bargains Sorry he hadn't asked more; that's human nature Suffering under the drip-drip of his innocent egotism Superstition that having and shining is the chief good Superstition of the romances that love is once for all That isn't very old--or not so old as it used to be The knowledge of your helplessness in any circumstances There is little proportion about either pain or pleasure They were so near in age, though they were ten years apart They can only do harm by an expression of sympathy Timidity of the elder in the presence of the younger man To do whatever one likes is finally to do nothing that one likes Took the world as she found it, and made the best of it Tragical character of heat Travel, with all its annoyances and fatigues Tried to be homesick for them, but failed Turn to their children's opinion with deference Typical anything else, is pretty difficult to find Unfounded hope that sooner or later the weather would be fine Used to having his decisions reached without his knowledge Vexed by a sense of his own pitifulness Voice of the common imbecility and incoherence Voting-cattle whom they bought and sold Wages are the measure of necessity and not of merit We get too much into the hands of other people We don't seem so much our own property Weariness of buying What we can be if we must When you look it--live it Wilful sufferers Willingness to find poetry in things around them Wish we didn't always recognize the facts as we do Without realizing his cruelty, treated as a child Woman harnessed with a dog to a cart Wooded with the precise, severely disciplined German forests Work he was so fond of and so weary of Would sacrifice his best friend to a phrase