He was
really quite a sensible fellow; said he was over here to do the
European tour, as he called it."
Small, sympathetic laugh from the attentive, wiry, red-faced woman on
the oracle's left, and also a chuckle, at the expense of the
American, from the thin Englishman on his right, who wore a large
white waistcoat, a blue veil on his hat, and a face as red as a live
coal.
"Quite an admission, was n't it, from an American? But I think they
have changed since the wah, you know."
At the next landing, the smooth and beaming churchman was left by his
friends; and he soon retired to the cabin, where I saw him
self-sacrificingly denying himself the views on deck, and consoling
himself with a substantial lunch and a bottle of English ale.
There is one thing to be said about the English abroad: the variety
is almost infinite. The best acquaintances one makes will be
English,--people with no nonsense and strong individuality; and one
gets no end of entertainment from the other sort. Very different
from the clergyman on the boat was the old lady at table-d'hote in
one of the hotels on the lake. One would not like to call her a
delightfully wicked old woman, like the Baroness Bernstein; but she
had her own witty and satirical way of regarding the world. She had
lived twenty-five years at Geneva, where people, years ago, coming
over the dusty and hot roads of France, used to faint away when they
first caught sight of the Alps.
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