"Surely, they can't all be in bed by seven o'clock?" I said.

"There doesn't seem much to stay up for," laughed Colin.

At length we suspected, rather than saw, a gleam of light at the rear of
one of the shrouded shapes we took for houses, and, stumbling toward it,
we heard cheerful voices, German voices; and, knocking at a back door,
received a friendly summons to enter. Then, out of the night that covered
us, suddenly sprang a kitchen full of light and a family at supper, kind
German folk, the old people, the younger married couple, and the
grandchildren, and a big dog vociferously taking care of them. A lighted
glimpse, a few hearty words of direction, and we were out in the night
again; for though, indeed, this was Dutch Hollow, its simple microcosm
did not include an hotel. For that we must walk on another half-mile or
so. O those country half-miles! So on we went again, and soon a lighted
stoop flashed on our right. At last! I mounted the steps of a veranda,
and, before knocking, looked in at the window. Then I didn't knock, but
softly called Colin, who was waiting in the road, and together we looked
in. At a table in the centre of a barely furnished, brightly-lit room, an
old woman and a young man were kneeling in prayer. Colin and I stood a
moment looking at them, and then softly took the road again.

But the inn, or rather the "hotel," did come at last. Alas! however, for
dreams of ruddy welcome--rubicund host, and capon turning on the spit. In
spite of German accents, we were walking in America, after all. A
shabbily-lit glass door admitted us into a dreary saloon bar, where a
hard-featured, gruff-mannered young countryman, after serving beer to two
farm-labourers, admitted with apparent reluctance that beds were to be
had by such as had "the price," but that, as to supper, well! supper was