So the serviette went with us by sea to Naples. There we were obliged for a time to occupy the same apartment, and the napkin taken off the bottle was lying about the room, for it was warm and there was no fire to throw it in. Tucking it away with soiled linen, it came back from the laundry clean and white, save one round oil-spot on it, and was thrown into my trunk along with the refreshed linen; and there it remained untouched until four months later, when I arrived at Vienna. At Venice, Cecilia was obliged to return to Paris: she was to rejoin me a fortnight later at Vienna. Meantime, a young Englishwoman, Kate Barton, whose acquaintance we had made at Rome, was going to Vienna to join a party of cousins; and as we were both alone, we arranged to make the journey together. Kate was one of the merriest of English girls (a native, however, of Cape Town), a tall, rosy-cheeked blond, with a half dozen brothers distributed in the British army and provincial parliaments. We left Venice at midnight in an Adriatic steamer, and arrived next morning at Trieste, a town which during our forced stay in it of forty-eight hours filled my mind with nothing but most disagreeable souvenirs. Life there was in complete contrast to the quiet, poetic, graceful existence at Venice, and the change from the one to the other had been so sudden as to act like a stunning blow. A detention caused by illness and the loss of a train through the purposed maliciousness of a hotel-waiter led to two results. One was our sending a telegram to the proprietor of the W----Hotel in Vienna to inform him of the delay, as rooms had been engaged for us by a gentleman who was in the habit of lodging in that hotel when in Vienna, and who before leaving the city had shown the kind thoughtfulness of sending us a letter of introduction to the proprietor commending us to his courtesy. The other result was to bring about an acquaintance with a Prussian, Herr Schwager, which happened in this wise: Kate, whose wrath was fully aroused at the troubles we encountered in Trieste, was extravagant in her denunciations of those "horrid Germans" after we were once fairly seated in the cars bound for Gratz. Neither of us spoke German with any degree of ease or much intelligibility, and consequently gave vent to our opinions in plain English. A young man of a studious, gentlemanly appearance, but of unmistakable Teutonic descent, sat in one corner of the compartment, and from his frequent smiling at our talk I concluded that he understood English, and made bold to ask him if he did. "Happily, I do," he replied, his handsome brown eyes twinkling with increased merriment, "and I am one of those 'horrid Germans.'"