so the bill was paid
by a joint contribution.

All this time the carriage was ready at the door, and the gentlemen,
attended by two or three waiters, conducted Mrs. Parkman down to the
door. The party then drove, in succession, to the various places which
the commissioner had enumerated. There were museums consisting of a
great many rooms filled with paintings, and palaces, where they were
shown up grand staircases, and through long corridors, and into suites
of elegant apartments, and churches, and beautiful parks and gardens,
and a bazaar filled with curiosities from China and Japan, and a great
many other similar places. Mr. George paid very particular attention to
Mrs. Parkman during the whole time, and made every effort to anticipate
and comply with her wishes in all respects. In one case, indeed, I think
he went too far in this compliance, and the result was to mortify her
not a little. It was in one of the museums of paintings. Mrs. Parkman,
like other ladies of a similar character to hers, always wanted to go
where she could not go, and to see what she could not see. If, when she
came into a town, she heard of any place to which, for any reason, it
was difficult to obtain admission, that was the very place of all others
that she wished most to see; and if, in any museum, or palace, or
library that she went into, there were two doors open and one shut, she
would neglect the open ones, and make directly to the one that was shut,
and ask to know what there was there. I do not know as there was any
thing particularly blameworthy in this. On the contrary, such a feeling
may be considered, in some respects, a very natural one in a lady. But,
nevertheless, when it manifests itself in a decided form, it makes the
lady a very uncomfortable and vexatious companion to the gentleman who
has her under his care.

In one of the rooms where our party went in the museum of paintings,
there was a door near one corner that was shut. All the other
doors--those which communicated with the several apartments where the
pictures were hung--were open. As soon as Mrs. Parkman came in sight of
the closed door, she pointed to it and said,--

"I wonder what there is in that room. I suppose it is something very
choice. I wish we could get in."

Mr. Parkman paid, at first, no attention to this request, but continued
to look at the pictures around him.

"I wish you would ask some of the attendants," she continued, "whether
we cannot go