It is indeed strange; for it is certain that nothing equals the
expectant enthusiasm and mutual esteem of the start except the cold
dislike of the finish. Many are the friendships that have found an
unforeseen and sudden end on a journey, and few are those that survive
it. But if Horace Walpole and Grey fell out, if Byron and Leigh Hunt
were obliged to part, if a host of other personages, endowed with every
gift that makes companionship desirable, could not away with each other
after a few weeks together abroad, is it to be wondered at that weaker
vessels such as Susie and Anna, Letty and Miss Leech, should have found
the short journey from London to Berlin sufficient to enable them to see
one another's failings with a clearness of vision that was startling?

On the lawyer, a keen-eyed man with a conspicuously fine face, Anna made
an entirely favourable impression. When he saw this gracious young lady,
so simple and so friendly, and looked into her frank and charming eyes,
he perfectly understood that old Joachim should have been bewitched. But
after a little conversation, it appeared that she had no present
intention of carrying out her uncle's wishes, but, setting them coolly
aside, proposed to spend all the good German money she could extract
from her property in that replete and bloated land, England.

This annoyed him; first because he hated England and then because his
father had managed old Joachim's affairs before he himself had stepped
into the paternal shoes, and the feeling of both father and son for the
old man had been considerably warmer than is usual between lawyer and
client. Still he could not believe, judging after the manner of men,
that anything so pretty could also be unkind; and scrutinising Lady
Estcourt, because she was unattractive and had a sharp little face and a
restless little body, he was convinced that she it was who was the cause
of this setting aside of a dead benefactor's wishes. Susie, for her
part, patronised him because his collar turned down.

Whenever Letty thought afterwards of Berlin, she thought of it as a
place where all the houses are museums, and where you drink so many cups
of chocolate with whipped cream on the top that you see things double
for the rest of the time.

Anna thought of it as a charming place, where delightful lawyers fill
your purse with money.

Susie thought of it with satisfaction as the one place abroad where, by
dint of sternest economy, walks fro