There was a good deal of garden drapery at our hotel, (a good deal of drapery too, as to prices, but this we did not find out until the last day of our stay!) Every night white tablecloths were spread over the beds of heather and chrysanthemums in the front garden. Every morning a very curious effect was caused by the snow, which had fallen during the night, having made deep folds in their sides and middles, so that at first sight it looked as if some enormous hats had been deposited there in the night. One evening, between eight and nine o'clock, while sitting quietly at the _table d'hôte_, which was presided over by a youthful master of ceremonies, who walked up and down in goloshes, (his invariable, though unexplainable, custom) there came the distant but rousing sound of bugles. Instantly chairs were pushed back, diners rose hastily, and presently the whole room emptied, and a shifting population tumultuously made its way across the hall, and through into the garden where the table-clothed flowers slept in their night wrappers,--and away to the gates. As we reached them the dark street was raggedly lit up by the flickering jerk of the red glare from moving torches: there was a sudden stir of music in the air: the bugles came nearer, accompanied by the quick tramp past of many feet: the rattle of the drums worked up the tune to its climax: then the call of the bugle again, exciting, questioning, hurrying: a moment later, the music dancing and edging off by rapid paces, till all the awakened emotion and excitement, stirred to vivid life of the passing, trenchant movement, sank--as it seemed, finally--quite suddenly, to a flicker in the socket, and ceased. The street in front of us grew emptier; and, the requirement of the inner man and inner woman again beginning to re-assert themselves, the garden witnessed the return to the deserted _table d'hôte_, of most of the crowd, who had, some minutes earlier, started up to follow the drum.