Page:1880. A Tramp Abroad.djvu/124

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
112
AN OLD TOWN.

to desire, the head waiter went blandly about his other duties, as if the working of this sort of miracle was a common and easy thing to him.

Mr. X. said he had not known, before, that there were people honest enough to do this miracle in public, but he was aware that thousands upon thousands of labels were imported into America from Europe every year, to enable dealers to furnish to their customers in a quiet and inexpensive way, all the different kinds of foreign wines they might require.

THE TOWN BY NIGHT.

We took a turn around the town, after dinner, and found it fully as interesting in the moonlight as it had been in the day time. The streets were narrow and roughly paved, and there was not a sidewalk or a street lamp anywhere. The dwellings were centuries old, and vast enough for hotels. They widened all the way up; the stories projected further and further forward and aside as they ascended, and the long rows of lighted windows, filled with little bits of panes, curtained with figured white muslin and adorned outside with boxes of flowers, made a pretty effect. The moon was bright, and the light and shadow very strong; and nothing could be more picturesque than those curving streets, with their rows of huge high gables leaning far over toward each other in a friendly