included in the category _Frauen_, and giving a swift timid glance
through her veil at the public confronting her was relieved to find it
consisted only of a comfortable mother and her child.

I know not why the adjective comfortable should so invariably be
descriptive of mothers in Germany. In England and France though you
may be a mother, you yet, I believe, may be so without being
comfortable. In Germany, somehow, you can't. Perhaps it is the
climate; perhaps it is the food; perhaps it is simply want of soul, or
that your soul does not burn with a fire sufficiently consuming.
Anyhow it is so. This mother had all the good-nature that goes with
amplitude. Being engaged in feeding her child with _belegte
Brödchen_--that immensely satisfying form of sandwich--she at once
offered Priscilla one.

"No thank you," said Priscilla, shrinking into her corner.

"Do take one, Fräulein," said the mother, persuasively.

"No thank you," said Priscilla, shrinking.

"On a journey it passes the time. Even if one is not hungry, thank God
one can always eat. Do take one."

"No thank you," said Priscilla.

"Why does she wear that black thing over her face?" inquired the
child. "Is she a witch?"

"Silence, silence, little worthless one," cried the mother,