ed that, so, after a light
breakfast, I started over the hills for a walk to the town, arriving
there soon after noon. I found the hotel, a fifth-rate one, and
entering, was shown to the room of the Countess. What a change for her
from the past! Her room was a small one, plastered, but unpapered, and
with a few articles of furniture of the cheapest. The poor woman was
too evidently in a state of frightful depression, and well she might be.
Hers had been a butterfly existence, life all one Summer holiday, no
hostages given to fortune, no bond taken against future wreck or change.
Like the butterfly, she had roamed from flower to flower, sipping the
sweet only, or, like the cricket, had merrily piped all the Summer
through, thinking sunshine and bloom eternal. Even when youth and beauty
had fled, and lovers no longer stood ready to attend and serve, she
still found a good aftermath in her happy harvest field on the floors of
the Casino, but when the Casino lights at Wiesbaden went out, then, for
the Countess, had the Winter indeed come.

My walk had given me something of an appetite, and it now being 2
o'clock I at once proposed to have dinner. To my surprise she said she
had already dined, and upon my remarking that it was early for dinner,
she replied that it was, but as she was owing quite a hotel bill she
feared to give any trouble lest the landlord might present his bill, and
in default of payment she was liable to arrest and a very considerable
imprisonment. I need hardly tell my readers that they do these things
differently in Germany than with us. I could easily afford to be
generous with other people's money, and did not mean to see the Countess
suffer for a hotel bill. Ringing the bell, I told the waiter to bring me
some dinner and a bottle of wine. The Countess looked very uneasy over
my order. Of late years she had seen life from the seamy side and had
observed so much of the falseness and cruelty of men that she had
apparently lost all faith in them, and no doubt thought me an
adventurer, one who might possibly dine and order expensive wines,
leaving her to face an angry landlord. While dinner was being prepared
she told me she was in the greatest distress; had not even a single
kreutzer to pay postage, and, worst of all, was owing for two weeks'
board. She had no means to fly, no place to fly to, and if she remained
incarceration awaited her. She had for weeks been writing everywhere to
every one she had kno