rough, rusty
clouds breaking a blue sky; another day, up to eleven in the forenoon,
it was like Indian summer; then it changed to a harsh November air;
and then it relented and ended so mildly, that they hired chairs in
the place before the imperial palace for five pfennigs each, and sat
watching the life before them. Motherly women-folk were there knitting;
two American girls in chairs near them chatted together; some fine
equipages, the only ones they saw in Berlin, went by; a dog and a man
(the wife who ought to have been in harness was probably sick, and the
poor fellow was forced to take her place) passed dragging a cart; some
schoolboys who had hung their satchels upon the low railing were playing
about the base of the statue of King William III. in the joyous freedom
of German childhood.

They seemed the gayer for the brief moments of sunshine, but to the
Americans, who were Southern by virtue of their sky, the brightness had
a sense of lurking winter in it, such as they remembered feeling on a
sunny day in Quebec. The blue heaven looked sad; but they agreed that it
fitly roofed the bit of old feudal Berlin which forms the most ancient
wing of the Schloss. This was time-blackened and rude, but at least it
did not try to be French, and it overhung the Spree which winds through
the city and gives it the greatest charm it has. In fact Berlin,
which is otherwise so grandiose without grandeur and so severe without
impressiveness, is sympathetic wherever the Spree opens it to the
sky. The stream is spanned by many bridges, and bridges cannot well be
unpicturesque, especially if they have statues to help them out. The
Spree abounds in bridges, and it has a charming habit of slow hay-laden
barges; at the landings of the little passenger-steamers which ply upon
it there are cafes and summer-gardens, and these even in the inclement
air of September suggested a friendly gayety.

The Marches saw it best in the tour of the elevated road in Berlin which
they made in an impassioned memory of the elevated road in New York. The
brick viaducts which carry this arch the Spree again and again in
their course through and around the city, but with never quite such
spectacular effects as our spidery tressels, achieve. The stations are
pleasant, sometimes with lunch-counters and news-stands, but have not
the comic-opera-chalet prettiness of ours, and are not so frequent. The
road is not so smooth, the cars not so smooth-running or so s