I
Nothing was out of the common on the way to the station, and our sense
of the ordinary was not relieved when we found ourselves in a car of the
American open-saloon pattern, well filled with other Americans bent upon
the same errand as ourselves; though I am bound to say that the backs of
the transverse seats rose well toward the roof of the car with a certain
originality.
When we cleared the city streets and houses, we began running out into
the country through suburbs vulgarly gay with small, bright brick
villas, so expressive of commuting that the eye required the vision of
young husbands and fathers going in at the gates with gardening tools on
their shoulders and under their arms. To be sure, the time of day and
the time of year were against this; it was now morning and autumn,
though there was a vernal brilliancy in the air; and the grass,
flattered by the recent rains, was green where we had last seen it gray.
Along a pretty stream, which, for all I know may have been the
Manzanares, it was so little, files of Lombardy poplars followed away
very agreeably golden in foliage; and scattered about were
deciduous-looking evergreens which we questioned for live-oaks.
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