Chapter 24 - Page 2

has made no exception
in his favor. We buy Monday morning's paper and read it, and thus
encourage Sunday printing. But I shall never do it again.

The Germans remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy, by abstaining
from work, as commanded; we keep it holy by abstaining from work, as
commanded, and by also abstaining from play, which is not commanded.
Perhaps we constructively BREAK the command to rest, because the resting
we do is in most cases only a name, and not a fact.

These reasonings have sufficed, in a measure, to mend the rent in my
conscience which I made by traveling to Baden-Baden that Sunday. We
arrived in time to furbish up and get to the English church before
services began. We arrived in considerable style, too, for the landlord
had ordered the first carriage that could be found, since there was no
time to lose, and our coachman was so splendidly liveried that we were
probably mistaken for a brace of stray dukes; why else were we honored
with a pew all to ourselves, away up among the very elect at the left of
the chancel? That was my first thought. In the pew directly in front of
us sat an elderly lady, plainly and cheaply dressed; at her side sat
a young lady with a very sweet face, and she also was quite simply
dressed; but around us and about us were clothes and jewels which it
would do anybody's heart good to worship in.

I thought it was pretty manifest that the elderly lady was embarrassed
at finding herself in such a conspicuous place arrayed in such cheap
apparel; I began to feel sorry for her and troubled about her. She
tried to seem very busy with her prayer-book and her responses, and
unconscious that she was out of place, but I said to myself, "She is
not succeeding--there is a distressed tremulousness in her voice which
betrays increasing embarrassment." Presently the Savior's name was
mentioned, and in her flurry she lost her head completely, and rose and
courtesied, instead of making a slight nod as everybody else did. The
sympathetic blood surged to my temples and I turned and gave those fine
birds what I intended to be a beseeching look, but my feelings got the
better of me and changed it into a look which said, "If any of you pets
of fortune laugh at this poor soul, you will deserve to be flayed for
it." Things went from bad to worse, and I shortly found myself mentally
taking the unfriended lady under my protection. My mind was wholly upon
her. I forgot all about the sermon. Her embarrassment took stronger
and stronger hold upon her; she got to snapping the lid of her
smelling-bottle--it made a loud, sharp sound, but in her trouble she
snapped and snapped away, unconscious of what she was doing. The last
extremity was reached when the