ople in carriages, people in cabs, people on
horseback, people on bicycles, people walking, people leading dogs,
people wheeling babies, people following children, all one laughing,
bowing, chattering procession, coming and going ceaselessly between the
Feldherrnhalle and the Siegesthor, with the blue Bavarian sky blessing
all the pleasure, and the tame doves of Munich under the feet of each
and every one.

Von Ibn stopped to watch the brilliant scene; Rosina stood beside him.

"What ill can one say of us?" he asked, after a while. "How can a place
be better than this?"

"_I_ never said that any place could be better than this," she
asseverated; "but I am uncommon in my opinions. The average American is
born in a land overflowing with steam-heat, ice-water, and bath-tubs,
and he suffers when he has to lose the hyphens and use the nouns
separately."

Von Ibn frowned.

"You amuse yourself much with queer words to-day," he said
discontentedly. "I wish I have stayed with Jack. I was much pleasured
with him."

"But you said that you had to return because of some business," she
reminded him.

He raised his eyebrows, and they went on again. After a little she
turned her eyes up to his and smiled.

"Don't say that you wish you were with Jack. I am so glad that you are
here."

He returned the smile.

"I have no wish to be with your cousin," he said amicably; "I find you
much more agreeable."

Then a little dog that a lady was leading by a long chain ran three
times around his legs and half choked itself to death, and the lady
screamed, and it was several minutes before all was calm again.

"I find it _bete_ to have a dog like that," he said, looking disgustedly
over his shoulder at the heroine of the episode, as she placidly
continued on her way. "It was _grand merci_ that I am not fallen, then.
What was about my feet I could not fancy, and also,"--he began to
laugh,--"and also it was droll, for I might not kick the dog."

Rosina laughed too.

"But in America," he went on, suddenly recurring to their earlier topic,
"have you no art?"

"Oh, yes; but nothing to compare with our sanitary arrangements. Our
president's bath-tub is cut out of one solid block of marble," she added
proudly.

"That is not so wonderful."

"Isn't it? The head-lines in the papers led me to think that it was. But
I'll tell you what I think is a disgrace to America," she went on with
energy, "and that is that the American artists who