Somewhere beyond Ventimiglia the train came to a dead stop in the dark, and the next morning we were still stalled in the same place. I had risen early, under the impression that I was to get out quickly, but was waved back by the porter who repeated over and over, “_Beaucoup de retard!_” I understood that much but I did not understand what caused it, or that I would not arrive in Pisa until two in the afternoon. I went into the dining-car and there encountered one of the most obstreperous English women that I have ever met. She was obviously of the highly intellectual class, but so haughty in her manner and so loud-spoken in her opinions that she was really offensive. She was having her morning fruit and rolls and some chops and was explaining to a lady, who was with her, much of the character of Italy as she knew it. She was of the type that never accepts an opinion from any one, but invariably gives her own or corrects any that may be volunteered. At one time I think she must have been attractive, for she was moderately tall and graceful, but her face had become waxy and sallow, and a little thin--I will not say hard, although it was anything but ingratiating. My one wish was that she would stop talking and leave the dining-car, she talked so loud; but she stayed on until her friend and her husband arrived. I took him to be her husband by the way she contradicted him. He was a very pleasing, intellectual person--the type of man, I thought, who would complacently endure such a woman. He was certainly not above the medium in height, quite well filled out, and decidedly phlegmatic. I should have said from my first glance that he never took any exercise of any kind; and his face had that interesting pallor which comes from much brooding over the midnight oil. He had large, soft, lustrous gray eyes and a mop of gray hair which hung low over a very high white forehead. I must repeat here that I am the poorest judge of people whom I am going to like of any human being. Now and then I take to a person instantly, and my feeling endures for years. On the other hand I have taken the most groundless oppositions based on nothing at all to people of whom subsequently I have become very fond. Perhaps my groundless opposition in this case was due to the fact that the gentleman was plainly submissive and overborne by his loud-talking wife. Anyhow I gave him a single glance and dismissed him from my thoughts. I was far more interested in a stern, official-looking Englishman with white hair who ordered his bottle of Perrier in a low, rusty voice and cut his orange up into small bits with a knife.