that whether the gown be high or low, worn by sunlight or
lamplight, you can see at a glance whether the woman who wears it is
English, French, or German. Every nation has its own features, its own
manners, and its own tone, instantly recognised by foreigners, and
apparently hidden from itself. The German assures you that the English
manner is quite unmistakable, and he will even describe and imitate
for your amusement some of his silly countryfolk who were talking to
him quite naturally, but suddenly froze and stiffened at the approach
of English friends whose national manner they wished to assume. In
England we are not conscious of having a stiff frozen manner, and we
never dream that everyone has the same manner. It takes a foreigner to
perceive this; and so in Germany it takes a foreigner to appreciate
and even to see the characteristic trifles that give a nation a
complexion of its own.

Some of the most comfortable hotels in Germany are the smaller ones
supported entirely by Germans. A stray Englishman, finding one of
these starred in Baedeker and put in the second class, may try it from
motives of economy, but in many of them he would only meet merchants
on their travels and the unmarried men of the neighbourhood who dine
there. In such establishments as these the _table d'hote_ still more
or less prevails, while if you go to fashionable hotels you dine at
small tables nowadays and see nothing of your neighbours. The part
played during dinner by the hotel proprietor varies considerably. In a
big establishment he is represented by the _Oberkellner_, and does not
appear at all. The _Oberkellner_ is a person of weight and standing;
so much so that when you are in a crowded beer garden and can get no
one to attend to you, you call out _Ober_ to the first boy waiter who
passes, and he is so touched by the compliment that he serves you
before your turn. But in a real old-fashioned German inn you have
personal relations with the proprietor, for he takes the head of his
table and attends to the comfort of his customers as carefully as if
they were his guests. This used to be a universal custom, but you only
find it observed now in the Sleepy Hollows of Germany. I have stayed
in a most comfortable and well-managed hotel where the proprietor and
his brother waited on their guests all through dinner, but never sat
down with them. There were hired men, but they played a subordinate
part. In small country inns the host still