strangers, going on to state that we were also world-weary,
and--

"Ach! want der supper," he said, his face brightening, and, turning, he
jogged on, elephant-like, before, muttering something about himself,
"Bin Yosef, an keepit der tavern,"--to the door of which, one of the
silent brick dwellings, he speedily brought us; and, summoning some
"Christ-ina" in a subdued bellow from the bowels of the cellar, went
into the neat bar-room, and swallowed two glasses of wine to revive
himself, dropping exhausted, apparently, into a chair.

Christina, an old dried-up woman, in the quaint, daintily clean dress of
blue, emerged from the cellar-door, bringing with her a savory smell of
frying ham and eggs. She glanced at us with suspicious blue eyes, and
then, with "_Ach! der Liebling! mein schoener Schatz!_" caught up Tony to
her shrivelled breast in a sudden surprise, and, going back to the
door, called "Fredrika!" Another old woman, dried, withered, with pale
blue eyes, appeared, and the two, hastily shoving us chairs, took Tony
between them, chattering in delighted undertones, patting his fat
cheeks, his hands, feeling his clothes, straightening his leg, and
laughing at the miniature muscles.

Knowles stared dumbly.

"You will haf der supper, hein?" said the first old woman, recollecting
herself and coming forward, her thin jaws yet reddened. "Der ham?
Shickens? It is so long as I haf seen a little shild," apologetically.

I assented to the ham and chicken proposition, answering for myself and
Tony at least. As they went down the stairs, they looked wistfully at
him. I nodded, and, picking him up, they carried him with them. I could
presently distinguish his shrill little tones, and half a dozen women's
voices, caressing, laughing with him. Yet it hurt me somehow to notice
that these voices were all old, subdued; none of them could ever hold a
baby on her lap, and call it hers. Joseph roused himself, came suddenly
in with a great pitcher of domestic wine, out again, and back with
ginger-cakes and apples,--"Till der supper be cookin'," with an
encouraging nod,--and then went back to his chair, and presently snored
aloud. In a few minutes, however, we were summoned to the table.

Knowles ate nothing, and looked vaguely over the great smoking dishes,
which Tony and I proved to be marvels of cookery. "Doubtless," he said,
"some of these people have not yet overcome this grosser taste; we have
yet seen but the dregs of the so