ravellers, and as many
more coachmen, and miners off duty, hanging about. A building on the
opposite side of the road was indicated to us ladies as the place in
which we were to change our costumes. Now, here was a pleasant gauntlet
to run in male attire! However, a hundred strangers were not to deter
us, and, _possibly_, this costume might be becoming. There were worse
figures in the world than ours, and who knew but this miners' dress
might show our forms to an advantage at which they had never been seen
before? Encouraged by the thought, we gave our treasures into safe
keeping and permitted the attendant to disrobe us. She spoke a dialect
which had little meaning to us, and we carried on our conversation by
signs.

She hung our habiliments on pegs, giving Elise's a little womanly caress
for their prettiness. She brought in exchange a costume which made us
helpless from laughter, until we were painfully sobered by the thought
of the spectators outside. A pair of white duck trousers that might have
been made of pasteboard, so stiff were they and so defined the crease
ironed at their sides, came first. Our measures were not taken. The
attendant accommodatingly turned them up about ten inches at the bottom,
the edge then coming to our ankles, which somehow looked very
insignificant and as if protruding from paper shoe-boxes that had been
sat upon. These nether garments extended beyond us at either side to
such a distance that that roundness of form which we had fancied this
costume might display was not in the least perceptible. A black alpaca
jacket reaching to our knees came next. These, too, had been warranted
to fit the biggest woman who might visit the Salzkammergut, and one
would easily have taken in all three of us. Elise, always ingenious,
found hers so long on the shoulder that she fitted her elbow into the
armsize. We pinned them up here and pinned them in there, and tucked
our hair into little black caps, and fastened the broad leather belt
about our waists, stuck a lantern in at the side, and announced
ourselves in readiness. The dressing-maid, however, was not done with
us. She brought three very heavy leathern aprons, attached to strong
waist-bands. The leather was three-quarters of an inch thick; and I need
not add that these square aprons did not take graceful folds. Elise,
after regarding the curious article a moment, decided it would be no
addition to her toilet, and politely declined it. Cecilia's _nez