The sun was struggling through the fog with a watery smile, and his
faint beams shone on a confusion of stone piers, higher than the
vessel's deck, intersected with canal-like waterways, through whose
intricate windings the steamer was slowly threading her course to the
landing-place. Looking up, Katy could see crowds of people assembled to
watch the boat come in,--workmen, peasants, women, children, soldiers,
custom-house officers, moving to and fro,--and all this crowd were
talking all at once and all were talking French!

I don't know why this should have startled her as it did. She knew, of
course, that people of different countries were liable to be found
speaking their own languages; but somehow the spectacle of the
chattering multitude, all seeming so perfectly at ease with their
preterits and subjunctives and never once having to refer to Ollendorf
or a dictionary, filled her with a sense of dismayed surprise.

"Good gracious!" she said to herself, "even the babies understand it!"
She racked her brains to recall what she had once known of French, but
very little seemed to have survived the horrors of the night!

"Oh dear! what is the word for trunk-key?" she asked herself. "They will
all begin to ask questions, and I shall not have a word to say; and Mrs.
Ashe will be even worse off, I know." She saw the red-trousered
custom-house officers pounce upon the passengers as they landed one by
one, and she felt her heart sink within her.

But after all, when the time came it did not prove so very bad. Katy's
pleasant looks and courteous manner stood her in good stead. She did not
trust herself to say much; but the officials seemed to understand
without saying. They bowed and gestured, whisked the keys in and out,