as light as the gay little clouds which blew about in the sky, when
their train drew out in the sunshine, brilliant on the charming
landscape all the way to Carlsbad. A fatherly 'traeger' had done his
best to get them the worst places in a non-smoking compartment, but had
succeeded so poorly that they were very comfortable, with no companions
but a mother and daughter, who spoke German in soft low tones together.
Their compartment was pervaded by tobacco fumes from the smokers, but as
these were twice as many as the non-smokers, it was only fair, and after
March had got a window open it did not matter, really.

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

The occasion for explaining that they were Americans and accustomed to
different car windows was so tempting that Mrs. March could not forbear,
and the other ladies were affected as deeply as she could wish. Perhaps
they were the more affected because it presently appeared that they had
cousins in New York whom she knew of, and that they were acquainted with
an American family that had passed the winter in Berlin. Life likes to
do these things handsomely, and it easily turned out that this was a
family of intimate friendship with the Marches; the names, familiarly
spoken, abolished all strangeness between the travellers; and they
entered into a comparison of tastes, opinions, and experiences, from
which it seemed that the objects and interests of cultivated people in
Berlin were quite the same as those of cultivated people in New York.
Each of the parties to the discovery disclaimed any superiority for
their respective civilizations; they wished rather to ascribe a greater
charm and virtue to the alien conditions; and they acquired such merit
with one another that when the German ladies got out of the train
at Franzensbad, the mother offered Mrs. March an ingenious folding
footstool which she had admired. In fact, she left her with it clasped
to her breast, and bowing speechless toward the giver in a vain wish to
express her gratitude.

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

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

"Ah, that's the difference! A Berliner could do it, and a Bostonian
couldn