backs, cushions, cloths, newspaper stands, foot-stools, duster bags,
and suchlike, all of which they now had the pleasure of seeing in the
places suitable to them. By the time we sat down in the dining-room
to a table loaded with cakes, the slight frost of arrival had melted
away. The strange Englishwoman no longer acted as a wet blanket, and
when she tried to converse with her neighbours she found, as she still
finds at German entertainments, that she could only do so by screaming
at the top of her voice as you do in England in a high wind or in the
sound of loud machinery. Everyone was in the highest spirits, and the
collective noise they made was amazing. In Germany, when actors play
English parts or when people in private life put on English manners,
the first thing they do is to lower their voices as if they had met to
bury a friend. This is the way our natural manner strikes them, while
their natural manner strikes us as easy and jolly, but tiring to the
voice and after a time to the spirit. There are quiet Germans, but
when they sit at a good man's table they must certainly either shout
or be left out of all that goes on. At a _Kaffee-Klatsch_ you either
shout or whisper, you eat every sort of rich cake presented to you if
you can, you drink chocolate or coffee with whipped cream. Nowadays
you would often find tea provided instead. When the hostess finds she
cannot persuade anyone to eat another cake, she leads her guests back
to the drawing-room, and the _Klatsch_ goes on. There is often music
as well as gossip, and before you are allowed to depart there are more
refreshments, ices, sweetmeats, fruit, little glasses of lemonade or
_Bowle_. When you get home you do not want any supper, and you are
quite hoarse, though you have only been to a simple _Kaffee-Klatsch_
without _Schleppe_. Your friends tell you that when they were young a
_Kaffee-Klatsch mit Schleppe_ was the favourite form of entertaining,
and lasted the whole afternoon and evening. Men were asked to come in
when the _Klatsch_ was over and a supper was provided. Those must have
been proud and bustling days for a _Hausfrau_ with one "girl."

To be asked to dinner or supper in Germany may mean anything. Either
form of invitation varies both in hour and kind more than it does in
England; but unless you are asked to a dinner that precedes a dance
you hardly ever need evening dress. Some years ago you would have
written that people never dressed for dinne