the same size and dressed alike, and came heavily
toward them.

"I thought you was in Carlsbad," he said bluntly to March, with a nod at
Mrs. March. He added, with a twist of his head toward the two girls,
"My daughters," and then left them to her, while he talked on with her
husband. "Come to see this foolery, I suppose. I'm on my way to the
woods for my after-cure; but I thought I might as well stop and give the
girls a chance; they got a week's vacation, anyway." Stoller glanced at
them with a sort of troubled tenderness in his strong dull face.

"Oh, yes. I understood they were at school here," said March, and he
heard one of them saying, in a sweet, high pipe to his wife:

"Ain't it just splendid? I ha'n't seen anything equal to it since the
Worrld's Fairr." She spoke with a strong contortion of the Western r,
and her sister hastened to put in:

"I don't think it's to be compared with the Worrld's Fairr. But these
German girls, here, just think it's great. It just does me good to laff
at 'em, about it. I like to tell 'em about the electric fountain and
the Courrt of Lionorr when they get to talkin' about the illuminations
they're goun' to have. You goun' out to the parade? You better engage
your carriage right away if you arre. The carrs'll be a perfect jam.
Father's engaged ourrs; he had to pay sixty marrks forr it."

They chattered on without shyness and on as easy terms with a woman of
three times their years as if she had been a girl of their own age;
they willingly took the whole talk to themselves, and had left her quite
outside of it before Stoller turned to her.

"I been telling Mr. March here that you better both come to the parade
with us. I guess my twospanner will hold five; or if it won't, we'll
make it. I don't believe there's a carriage left in Wurzburg; and if you
go in the cars, you'll have to walk three or four miles before you get
to the parade-ground. You think it over," he said to March. "Nobody else
is going to have the places, anyway, and you can say yes at the last
minute just as well as now."

He moved off with his girls, who looked over their shoulders at the
officers as they passed on through the adjoining room.

"My dear!" cried Mrs. March. "Didn't you suppose he classed us with
Burnamy in that business? Why should he be polite to us?"

"Perhaps he wants you to chaperon his daughters. He's probably heard
of your performance at the Kurhaus ball. But he knows that I thought
Burn