hey decided at last, in view of the early departure of the train, and
the probability that they would be more hurried at a hotel, to breakfast
at the station, and thither they went and took places at one of the
many tables within, where they seemed to have been expected only by
the flies. The waitress plainly had not looked for them, and for a time
found their presence so incredible that she would not acknowledge the
rattling that Basil was obliged to make on his glass. Then it appeared
that the cook would not believe in them, and he did not send them, till
they were quite faint, the peppery and muddy draught which impudently
affected to be coffee, the oily slices of fugacious potatoes slipping
about in their shallow dish and skillfully evading pursuit, the pieces
of beef that simulated steak, the hot, greasy biscuit, steaming
evilly up into the face when opened, and then soddening into masses of
condensed dyspepsia.

The wedding-journeyers looked at each other with eyes of sad amaze.
They bowed themselves for a moment to the viands, and then by an equal
impulse refrained. They were sufficiently young, they were happy, they
were hungry; nature is great and strong, but art is greater, and before
these triumphs of the cook at the Albany depot appetite succumbed. By
a terrible tour de force they swallowed the fierce and turbid liquor
in their cups, and then speculated fantastically upon the character and
history of the materials of that breakfast.

Presently Isabel paused, played a little with her knife, and, after a
moment looked up at her husband with an arch regard and said: "I was
just thinking of a small station somewhere in the South of France where
our train once stopped for breakfast. I remember the freshness and
brightness of everything on the little tables,--the plates, the napkins,
the gleaming half-bottles of wine. They seemed to have been preparing
that breakfast for us from the beginning of time, and we were hardly
seated before they served us with great cups of 'cafe-au-lait', and the
sweetest rolls and butter; then a delicate cutlet, with an unspeakable
gravy, and potatoes,--such potatoes! Dear me, how little I ate of it! I
wish, for once, I'd had your appetite, Basil; I do indeed."

She ended with a heartless laugh, in which, despite the tragical
contrast her words had suggested, Basil finally joined. So much
amazement had probably never been got before out of the misery inflicted
in that place; but thei