Curious, was it not? and yet we had neither brought our passports with
us, nor had we followed the example of previous guests and proved our
learning by writing our names and birthplaces in the visitors' book--a
large volume for which every door-lintel and piece of wainscot in the
house acted as leaves. No, but some little bird had been whispering
about us on the mountain-side.

The next figure is another peasant-woman, tall and somewhat thin,
with a patient, beseeching look in her face. This I quietly perceived
whilst I sat busily writing near the house at a table which Moidel had
carried out for me, yet I would not look up, because she stood eyeing
me with an innocent stare, as if wishful to enter into conversation. A
few minutes later a buxom matron stepped forth from the passage of
the chalet. It acted as a convenient thoroughfare on the road between
Reischach and Geisselburg. Her daughter, a girl of sixteen, who was
with her, wore two beaver hats, the uppermost evidently bran-new and a
fresh purchase. The first peasant-woman addressed the newcomer with a
"God greet thee, Trina! Thou hast been shopping, I see."

"God greet thee, Gertraud! It is only a new hat for the moidel. We
were going down for Scapulary Sunday; so I thought I might go on to
town and sell thirty pounds of cow-hair, the savings of ten years;
for, now there's to be a railway, beds are wanted, and as I received
more than I expected, Moidel got her hat."

Then lowering her voice and pointing in my direction: "One of the
strange ladies? I saw the other in the wood gathering strawberries. I
heard she came from America, but she was quite pretty, without either
black skin or thick lips. There must be some mistake. But, Gertraud,