from the hotel, saying
that their missing trunk had not yet been found, and their spirits were
as light as the gay little clouds which blew about in the sky, when their
train drew out in the sunshine, brilliant on the charming landscape all
the way to Carlsbad. A fatherly 'traeger' had done his best to get them
the worst places in a non-smoking compartment, but had succeeded so
poorly that they were very comfortable, with no companions but a mother
and daughter, who spoke German in soft low tones together. Their
compartment was pervaded by tobacco fumes from the smokers, but as these
were twice as many as the non-smokers, it was only fair, and after March
had got a window open it did not matter, really.

He asked leave of the strangers in his German, and they consented in
theirs; but he could not master the secret of the window-catch, and the
elder lady said in English, "Let me show you," and came to his help.

The occasion for explaining that they were Americans and accustomed to
different car windows was so tempting that Mrs. March could not forbear,
and the other ladies were affected as deeply as she could wish. Perhaps
they were the more affected because it presently appeared that they had
cousins in New York whom she knew of, and that they were acquainted with
an American family that had passed the winter in Berlin. Life likes to do
these things handsomely, and it easily turned out that this was a family
of intimate friendship with the Marches; the names, familiarly spoken,
abolished all strangeness between the travellers; and they entered into a
comparison of tastes, opinions, and experiences, from which it seemed
that the objects and interests of cultivated people in Berlin were quite
the same as those of cultivated people in New York. Each of the parties
to the discovery disclaimed any superiority for their respective
civilizations; they wished rather to ascribe a greater charm and virtue
to the alien conditions; and they acquired such merit with one another
that when the German ladies got out of the train at Franzensbad, the
mother offered Mrs. March an ingenious folding footstool which she had
admired. In fact, she left her with it clasped to her breast, and bowing
speechless toward the giver in a vain wish to express her gratitude.

"That was very pretty of her, my dear," said March. "You couldn't have
done that."

"No," she confessed; "I shouldn't have had the courage. The courage of my
emotions," she ad