ed no nearer. Well, it did not matter. That is the chief
beauty of a tour like mine, that nothing matters. As soon as there are
no trains to catch a journey becomes magnificently simple. We might
loiter as long as we liked on the road if only we got to some place, any
place, by nightfall. This, of course, was my buoyant midday mood, before
fatigue had weighed down my limbs and hunger gnawed holes in my
cheerfulness. The wind, smelling of sea and freshly-cut grass, had quite
blown away the memory of how tragic life had looked the night before
when set about by too many beds and not enough wash-stand; and I walked
along with what felt like all the brightness of heaven in my heart.

The end of this walk--I think of it as one of the happiest and most
beautiful I have had--came about one o'clock. At that dull hour, when
the glory of morning is gone and the serenity of afternoon has not
begun, we arrived at a small grey wooden hotel, separated from the east
sea by a belt of fir-wood, facing a common to the south, and about
twenty minutes' walk from Thiessow proper, which lies on the sea on the
western and southern shore of the point. It looked clean, and I went in.
August and Gertrud sat broiling in the sun of the shelterless sandy road
in front of the lily-grown garden. Somehow I had no doubts about being
taken in here, and I was at once shown a spotless little bedroom by a
spotless landlady. It was a corner room in the south-west corner of the
house, and one window looked south on to the common and the other west
on to the plain. The bed was drawn across this window, and lying on it I
could see the western sea, the distant hill on the shore with its
village, and grass, grass, nothing but grass, rolling away from the very
wall of the house to infinity and the sunset. The room was tiny. If I
had had more than a hold-all I should not have been able to get into it.
It had a locked door leading into another bedroom which was occupied,
said the chambermaid, by a quiet lady who would make no noise. Gertrud's
room was opposite mine. August cheered up when I went out and told him
he could go to the stables and put up, and Gertrud was visibly agreeably
surprised by the cleanliness of both our rooms.

I lunched on a verandah overlooking the common, with the Madonna lilies
of the little garden within reach of my hand; and the tablecloth and the
spoons and the waiter were all in keeping with the clean landlady. The
inn being small the v