It was a pleasure not easily definable to find our
hotel managed by a mother and two daughters, who gave the orders obeyed
by the men-servants, and did not rebuke them for joining in the
assurance that when we got used to going so abruptly from the
dining-room into our bedrooms we would like it. The elder of the
daughters had some useful French, and neither of the younger ladies ever
stayed for some ultimate details of dishabille in coming to interpret
the mother and ourselves to one another when we encountered her alone in
the office. They were all thoroughly kind and nice, and they were
supported with surpassing intelligence and ability by the _chico,_ a
radiant boy of ten, who united in himself the functions which the
amiable inefficiency of the porters and waiters abandoned to him.
When we came out to dinner after settling ourselves in our almost
obtrusively accessible rooms, we were convinced of the wisdom of our
choice of a hotel by finding our dear Chilians at one of the tables. We
rushed together like two kindred streams of transatlantic gaiety, and in
our mingled French, Spanish, and English possessed one another of our
doubts and fears in coming to our common conclusion.
Pages:
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90