"Dreadful!" said I, remembering the Sunday school.
"Awful!" said she, recalling the pious ancestors. And again we shook our heads at his blandishments to the point of dislocation. The driver, who had been all this time tipped back against a tree, began to show symptoms of impatience. Something must be done.
"Suppose you ask for some one who can speak English," suggested Mrs. K.
"Sure enough." And I did. With one last, terrible grimace the ogre's heels disappeared up the second flight of stairs.
There came down in a moment a thoroughly respectable appearing porter, who informed us, in English, that we were expected, our telegram having been received; though, through the ambiguity of its address, it had been sent first to a house below. The people there had promised to forward us, however, in case we followed the telegram. This accounted for the movements of the little portress.
The _ogre_ proved to be a most good-natured _concierge_, who had been instructed to keep the door open in anticipation of our arrival.
So our fears had been but feathers, after all, blown away by a breath; our troubles only a dream, to be laughed over in the awakening.
Here the story of our journeying may end. The remaining distance, through the kindness of friends, new and old, was accomplished without difficulty or annoyance. We reached our own homes in due time, and like the princess in the fairy tales, "lived happily forever afterwards."
A few practical words suggest themselves here which would pass unnoticed in a preface--where, perhaps, they belong. First, in regard to the question often asked, "Can women travel alone through Europe?" Recalling our own experience,--too brief to serve as a criterion,--I should still say, "_Yes_." We met, frequently, parties of ladies who had made the whole grand tour alone. In Switzerland we found English women, constantly, without escort. The care of choosing routes, of looking after baggage and buying tickets, of managing the sometimes complicated affairs attendant upon sight-seeing, with the vexations and impositions met with and suffered on every hand, no woman would voluntarily accept without great compensation, I am sure. But if she prefers even these cares to seeing nothing of the world, they can be borne, and the annoyances, to a great extent overcome, through patience and growing experience.