et, but not very many,
before the latter question is asked at Jerusalem.

Bertram had arrived about a fortnight before Easter, and the town
was already full of pilgrims, congregated for that ceremony, and of
English and Americans who had come to look at the pilgrims.

The inn was nearly full, and George, when he entered the public room,
heard such a Babel of English voices, and such a clatter of English
spoons that he might have fancied himself at the top of the _Righi_
or in a Rhine steamboat. But the subjects under discussion all
savoured of the Holy Land.

"Mrs. Rose, we are going to have a picnic on Monday in the Valley of
Jehoshaphat; will you and your young ladies join us? We shall send
the hampers to the tomb of Zachariah."

"Thank you, Miss Todd; we should have been so happy; but we have only
three days to do Bethlehem, the Dead Sea, and Jericho. We must be off
to-morrow."

"Mamma, I lost my parasol somewhere coming down the Mount of Offence.
Those nasty Arab children must have stolen it."

"They say the people in Siloam are the greatest thieves in Syria; and
nobody dares to meddle with them."

"But I saw it in your hand, my dear, at the Well of Enrogel."

"What, no potatoes! there were potatoes yesterday. Waiter, waiter;
who ever heard of setting people down to dinner without potatoes?"

"Well, I didn't know what to say to it. If that is the tomb of
Nicodemus, that seems to settle the question. May I trouble you for
the salt?"

"Mr. Pott, I won't have anything more to say to you; you have no
faith. I believe it all."

"What, all? from Calvary upstairs in the gallery down to the dark
corner where the cock crew?"

"Yes, all, Mr. Pott. Why should not a cock crow there as well as
anywhere else? It is so beautiful to believe."

George Bertram found himself seated next to a lady-like well-dressed
Englishwoman of the middle age, whom he heard called Miss Baker; and
next to her again sat--an angel! whom Miss Baker called Caroline,
and whom an odious man sitting on the other side of her called Miss
Waddington.

All my readers will probably at different times have made part of a
table-d'hote assemblage; and most of them, especially those who have
travelled with small parties, will know how essential it is to one's
comfort to get near to pleasant neighbours. The young man's idea of a
pleasant neighbour is of course a pretty girl. What the young ladies'
idea may be I don't pretend to say. But it certainl