e packed--exhilarating preparations.

Our friends looked at us, when we had unfolded our project, with a
mixture of surprise and pity. "Amiable lunatics" was the first comment of
their countenances, and--"There never was any telling what the artistic
temperament would do next!" Had we announced an air-ship voyage to the
moon, they would have regarded us as comparatively reasonable, but to
walk--_to walk_--some four or five hundred miles in America, of all
countries, a country of palace cars and, lightning limited expresses, not
to mention homicidal touring automobiles, seemed like--what shall I
say?--well, as though one should start out for New Zealand in a row-boat,
or make the trip to St. Petersburg in a sedan-chair.

But there were others--especially the women--who understood, felt as we
did, and longed to go with us. I have never met a woman yet whose face
did not light up at the thought of a walking tour, and in her heart long
to don Rosalind clothes and set forth in search of adventures. We thus
had the advantage, in planning our route, of several prettily coiffed
heads bending over our maps and guide-books with us.

"Four hundred and thirty miles," said one of these Rosalinds, whose
pretty head was full of pictures of romantic European travel. "Think what
one could do with four hundred and thirty miles in Europe. Let us try,
for the fun of it."

And turning to a map of Europe, and measuring out four hundred and thirty
miles by scale on a slip of paper, she tried it up and down the map from
point to point. "Look at funny little England!" she said. "Why, you will
practically be walking from one end of England to the other. See," and
she fitted her scale to the map, "it would bring you easily from
Portsmouth to Aberdeen.

"And now let us try France. Why, see again--you will be walking from
Calais to Marseilles--think of it! walking through France, all vineyards
and beautiful names. Now Italy--see! you will be walking from Florence to
Mount Etna--Florence, Rome, Naples, Palermo."

And so in imagination our fair friend sketched out fanciful pilgrimages
for us. "You could walk from Gibraltar to the Pyrenees," she went on.
"You could walk from Venice to Berlin; from Brussels to Copenhagen; you
could walk from Munich to Budapest; you could walk right across Turkey,
from Constantinople to the Adriatic Sea. And Greece--see! you could walk
from Sparta to the Danube. To think of the romantic use you could make
of your