ver and the established rate of
fares. He only touched his shiny hat and prepared to gather up his
reins.

"O, dear!" we said; "this will never do; we must not go." And we
stepped down. The porters upon the hotel steps began to cast inquiring
glances. One or two stray passers added their mite of curiosity, when
the knight-errant, who always breaks a lance for distressed womanhood,
appeared upon the scene. We recognized him at once, though his armor was
only a suit of gray tweed, and he wore a fashionable round-topped hat
for a casque.

Almost before we knew it, we were seated in the carriage, the _carte_ in
our hands, and were slowly crawling out of the square--for a subdued
snail-pace is the highest point of speed attained by these public
vehicles.

The memory of Basle is as shadowy, dim, delightful, as was that twilight
ride. Where we were going, we neither knew nor cared; nor, later, where
we had been. We wound in and out the close streets of the old part of
the city, full of a busy life so far removed from our own, that it
seemed a show, a picture; below the surface we could not penetrate. We
rolled along wide avenues where the houses on either side were white as
the dust under the wheels. Once in a quiet square, we paused before an
old _Hotel de Ville_, frescoed in warm, rich colors. Again upon the
outskirts of the city, before a monument; but whether it had been
erected to hero or saint I cannot now recall. And somewhere, when the
dusk was deepening, we found an old church, gray as the shadows
enveloping it, with a horseman, spear in hand, cut in _bas relief_ upon
one side. What dragon he made tilt against in the darkness we never
knew.

Even our driver seemed to warm beneath the influences which subdued and
dissipated our cares. He nodded gently and complacently to
acquaintances, eliciting greetings in return, in which we, in a measure,
shared. He hummed a guttural, though cheerful song, which found an echo
in our hearts. He stood up in his place to point the way to misguided
strangers, in whose perplexities we could so well sympathize. And once,
having laid down the reins, and paused in our slow advance, he held a
long and seemingly enjoyable conversation with a passing friend. To all
this we made no manner of objection, rather we entered into the spirit
of the hour, and were filled with a complacency which was hastily
banished upon our return to the hotel, where, as we put into the hand of
our benevolent