a rattle of dance music in the morning hours, a sound of
high-pitched voices at all times. You receive an impression
of these things at the excellent inn of the "Trois Couronnes"
and are transported in fancy to the Ocean House or to Congress Hall.
But at the "Trois Couronnes," it must be added, there are other
features that are much at variance with these suggestions:
neat German waiters, who look like secretaries of legation;
Russian princesses sitting in the garden; little Polish
boys walking about held by the hand, with their governors;
a view of the sunny crest of the Dent du Midi and the picturesque
towers of the Castle of Chillon.

I hardly know whether it was the analogies or the differences that were
uppermost in the mind of a young American, who, two or three years ago,
sat in the garden of the "Trois Couronnes," looking about him,
rather idly, at some of the graceful objects I have mentioned.
It was a beautiful summer morning, and in whatever fashion the young
American looked at things, they must have seemed to him charming.
He had come from Geneva the day before by the little steamer,
to see his aunt, who was staying at the hotel--Geneva having been
for a long time his place of residence. But his aunt had a headache--
his aunt had almost always a headache--and now she was shut up in
her room, smelling camphor, so that he was at liberty to wander about.
He was some seven-and-twenty years of age; when his friends spoke
of him, they usually said that he was at Geneva "studying."
When his enemies spoke of him, they said--but, after all, he had
no enemies; he was an extremely amiable fellow, and universally liked.
What I should say is, simply, that when certain persons spoke
of him they affirmed that the reason of his spending so much
time at Geneva was that he was extremely devoted to a lady