e you so dull already, Nancy?" he
asks, in that voice of peculiar gentleness which I have already learned
to know hides inward pain.

"Oh, no, no!" cry I, with quick remorse. "Not at all! I have always
_longed_ to travel! At one time Barbara and I were always talking about
it, making plans, you know, of where we would go. I enjoy it, of all
things, especially the pictures--but do not you think it would be
amusing to have some one to talk to at the _tables d'hote_, some one
English, to laugh at the people with?"

"Yes," he answers, readily, "of course it would. It is quite natural
that you should wish it. I heartily hope we shall. We will go wherever
it is most likely."

After long, _long_ hours of dark rushing, Dresden at last. We drive in
an open carriage through an unknown town, moonlit, silent, and asleep.
German towns go to bed early. We cross the Elbe, in which a second moon,
big and clear as the one in heaven, lies quivering, waving with the
water's wave; then through dim, ghostly streets, and at last--at
last--we pull up at the door of the Hotel de Saxe, and the sleepy porter
comes out disheveled.

"There is no doubt," say I, aloud, when I find myself alone in my
bedroom, Sir Roger not having yet come up, and the maid having gone to
bed--addressing the remark to the hot water in which I have been bathing
my face, stiff with dirt, and haggard with fatigue. "There is no use
denying it, I _hate_ being married!"

CHAPTER XI.

We have been in Dresden three whole days, and as yet my aspirations have
not met their fulfillment. We have met no one we know. We have borrowed
the Visitors' Book from the porter, and diligently searched it. We have
expectantly examined the guests at the _tables d'hote_ every day, but
with no result. It is too early in the year. The hotel is not half full.
Of its inmates one half are American, a quarter German, and the other
quarter English, such as not the most rabidly social mind can wish to
forgather with. At the discovery of our ill-success, Sir Roger looks so
honestly crestfallen that my heart smites me.

"How eager you are!" I say, laying my hand on his, with a smile. "You
are far more anxious about it than I am! I begin to think that you are
growing tired of me already! As for me," continue I, nonchalantly,
seeing his face brighten at my words, "I think I have changed my mind.
Perhaps it would be rather a _bore_ to meet any acquaintance,
and--and--we do very well as we a