e so unpleasantly in the houses of Americans whose
prosperity is unsupported by a corresponding amount of culture. This
was my first reflection on entering Mr. Pfeifer's drawing-room, while
in my heart I begged the proprietor's pardon for the patronizing
attitude I found myself assuming toward him. The heavy, solid
furniture, the grave and decorously mediocre pictures, and the very
tint of the walls wore an air of substantial, though somewhat
lugubrious comfort. His niece, too, although her form was by no means
lacking in grace, seemed somehow to partake of this all-pervading air
of Teutonic solidity and homelike comfort. She was one of those women
who seemed born to make some wretched man undeservedly happy. (I
always feel a certain dim hostility to any man, even though I may not
know him, who marries a charming and lovable woman; it is with me a
foregone conclusion that he has been blessed beyond his deserts.)
There was a sweet matronliness and quiet dignity in her manner, and
beneath the placid surface of her blue eyes I suspected hidden depths
of pure maidenly sentiment. The cast of her countenance was distinctly
Germanic; not strikingly beautiful, perhaps, but extremely pleasing;
there was no discordant feature in it, no loud or harsh suggestion to
mar the subdued richness of the whole picture. Her blond hair was
twisted into a massive coil on the top of her head, and the
unobtrusive simplicity and taste of her toilet were merely her
character (as I had conceived it) translated into millinery. My
feelings, as I stood gazing at her, unconsciously formulated
themselves into the well-known benediction of Heine's, which I could
with difficult keep from quoting:

"Mir ist als ob ich die Haende,
Auf's Haupt dir legen sollt',
Betend dass Gott dich erhalte,
So rein mid schoen und hold."

I observed with quiet amusement, though in a very sympathetic spirit,
that she did not manage her train well; and from the furtive attention
she was ever bestowing upon it, I concluded that her experience with
long dresses must have been of recent date. I noticed, too, as she
came forward to salute me, that her hands were not unused to toil; but
for this I only honored her the more.

The dinner was as serious and substantial as everything else in Mr.
Pfeifer's house, and passed off without any notable incident. The host
persisted in talking business with me, which the young lady, at whose
side I sat, accepted as a matt