Page:The Author of Beltraffio, Pandora, Georgina's Reasons, The Path of Duty, Four Meetings (Boston, James R. Osgood & Co., 1885).djvu/102

98 voice, a remark which every one paused to listen to, and which was greeted with roars of laughter. Vogelstein, well as he knew English, could rarely catch the joke; but he could see, at least, that these were the most transcendent flights of American humor. The young man, in his way, was very remarkable, for, as Vogelstein heard some one say once, after the laughter had subsided, he was only nineteen. If his sister did not resemble the dreadful little girl in the tale I have so often mentioned, there was, for Vogelstein, at least an analogy between young Mr. Day and a certain small brother,—a candy-loving Madison, Hamilton, or Jefferson,—who, in the Tauchnitz volume, was attributed to that unfortunate maid. This was what the little Madison would have grown up to at nineteen, and the improvement was greater than might have been expected.

The days were long, but the voyage was short, and it had almost come to an end before Count Vogelstein yielded to an attraction peculiar in its nature, and finally irresistible, and in spite of Mrs. Dangerfield's warnings, sought an opportunity for a little continuous talk with Miss Pandora Day. To mention this sentiment without mentioning sundry other impressions of his voyage, with which it had nothing to do, is perhaps to violate proportion and give a false idea; but to pass it by would be still more unjust. The Germans, as we know, are a transcendental people, and there was at last a vague fascination for