prevailing classicistic facades of the
houses as they passed, and when they arrived at their hotel, an old
mansion of Versailles type, fronting on a long irregular square planted
with pollard sycamores, they said that it might as well have been Lucca.

The archway and stairway of the hotel were draped with the Bavarian
colors, and they were obscurely flattered to learn that Prince Leopold,
the brother of the Prince-Regent of the kingdom, had taken rooms there,
on his way to the manoeuvres at Nuremberg, and was momently expected with
his suite. They realized that they were not of the princely party,
however, when they were told that he had sole possession of the
dining-room, and they went out to another hotel, and had their supper in
keeping delightfully native. People seemed to come there to write their
letters and make up their accounts, as well as to eat their suppers; they
called for stationery like characters in old comedy, and the clatter of
crockery and the scratching of pens went on together; and fortune offered
the Marches a delicate reparation for their exclusion from their own
hotel in the cold popular reception of the prince which they got back
just in time to witness. A very small group of people, mostly women and
boys, had gathered to see him arrive, but there was no cheering or any
sign of public interest. Perhaps he personally merited none; he looked a
dull, sad man, with his plain, stubbed features; and after he had mounted
to his apartment, the officers of his staff stood quite across the
landing, and barred the passage of the Americans, ignoring even Mrs.
March's presence, as they talked together.

"Well, my dear," said her husband, "here you have it at last. This is
what you've been living for, ever since we came to Germany. It's a great
moment."

"Yes. What are you going to do?"

"Who? I? Oh, nothing! This is your affair; it's for you to act."

If she had been young, she might have withered them with a glance; she
doubted now if her dim eyes would have any such power; but she advanced
steadily upon them, and then the officers seemed aware of her, and stood
aside.

March always insisted that they stood aside apologetically, but she held
as firmly that they stood aside impertinently, or at least indifferently,
and that the insult to her American womanhood was perfectly ideal. It is
true that nothing of the kind happened again during their stay at the
hotel; the prince's officers were afterwards a