I settled back into a still more comfortable position and said: "Did I ever tell you, Mary, of the May-flies' dance of death I saw in Lucerne once, not far from the old bridge across the Reuss with its famous pictures of our own dance of death? Well, then, we'll just about have time before the tower-clock calls us home. Do you want to hear about it?" "Yes, please," said Mary. "Well, I had been studying in a great university in an old German town all the spring and early summer and had come to Switzerland for my vacation. You know there are splendid mountains there--" "The Alps," interrupted Mary. "The highest is Mt. Blanc, 15,730 feet above the sea." How Mary does know her geography! "And beautiful lakes," I continue. "And the roads are good for tramping, and the hotels cheap. Anyway, the ones the students go to. I had come to Lucerne from Zurich--" "Noted for its silks and university where women can go," Mary broke in again. Bless me, what's the use of going to Europe anyway, if you learn everything about everywhere in the grades? "And had gone straight to the _Mühlenbrücke_," I go on,--"that's the old bridge all covered with a roof that crosses the Reuss only a few rods from where it flows out of the lake; the lake of Lucerne, you know." "Of course," said Mary. "For it is on the ceiling of that bridge," I persist, "that these curious old Dance of Death pictures are painted, and I had heard a great deal about them. They show how everybody is dancing through life to his grave. Not very pleasant pictures, Mary." "Very unpleasant, I should think," says Mary, positively. "I hope you didn't look at them long." "No, because, for one reason, it was getting too dark to see them. The sun had set behind the Gutsch--that's a pretty hill just west of Lucerne--and the electric lights were already flashing along the lake-shore promenade. You know what a wonderfully beautiful lake Lucerne is, of course, Mary?" "Yes; it is unsurpassed in Switzerland, perhaps in Europe, for magnificence of scenery," replies Mary, in level voice. I resolve to cut geographic information out of any further stories I tell Mary. Do they commit Baedeker to memory nowadays in the schools? "Exactly," I manage to reply without betraying too much astonishment at this revelation of the American educational method. "Well, along the shore of this unsurpassed lake at the town of Lucerne there is a broad promenade with trees and benches and electric lights. Behind it are the big hotels all in a curving row, and after dinner all the people come out and stroll about while the band plays. It is a fine sight." Mary seemed to be getting a little less than interested. She squirmed into a new position on the rough rockwork and then, looking out over the little pond with its hawking dragons whizzing back and forth, she asked: "What about the May-flies, please?" I really believe she knew all about the hotels and promenade and the band. What wonderful schools!