y. Come, I also am human!"

Basil found that, for his sin in asking for a cool room, the clerk had
given them a chamber into which the sun had been shining the whole
afternoon; but when his luggage had been put in it seemed useless to
protest, and like a true American, like you, like me, he shrank from
asserting himself. When the sun went down it would be cool enough; and
they turned their thoughts to supper, not venturing to hope that, as it
proved, the handsome clerk was the sole blemish of the house.

Isabel viewed with innocent surprise the evidences of luxury afforded by
all the appointments of a hotel so far west of Boston, and they both
began to feel that natural ease and superiority which an inn always
inspires in its guests, and which our great hotels, far from impairing,
enhance in flattering degree; in fact, the clerk once forgotten, I
protest, for my own part, I am never more conscious of my merits and
riches in any other place. One has there the romance of being a stranger
and a mystery to every one else, and lives in the alluring possibility of
not being found out a most ordinary person.

They were so late in coming to the supper-room, that they found
themselves alone in it. At the door they had a bow from the head-waiter,
who ran before them and drew out chairs for them at a table, and signaled
waiters to serve them, first laying before them with a gracious flourish
the bill of fare.

A force of servants flocked about them, as if to contest the honor of
ordering their supper; one set upon the table a heaping vase of
strawberries, another flanked it with flagons of cream, a third
accompanied it with Gates of varied flavor and device; a fourth
obsequiously smoothed the table-cloth; a fifth, the youngest of the five,
with folded arms stood by and admired the satisfaction the rest were
giving. When these had been dispatched for steak, for broiled white-fish
of the lakes,--noblest and delicatest of the fish that swim,--for broiled
chicken, for fried potatoes, for mums, for whatever the lawless fancy,
and ravening appetites of the wayfarers could suggest, this fifth waiter
remained to tempt them to further excess, and vainly proposed some kind
of eggs,--fried eggs, poached eggs, scrambled eggs, boiled eggs, or
omelette.

"O, you're sure, dearest, that this isn't a vision of fairy-land, which
will vanish presently, and leave us empty and forlorn?" plaintively
murmured Isabel, as the menial train reappeared,