CHAPTER XXXII.
WE located ourselves at the Jungfrau Hotel, one of those huge establishments which the needs of modern travel have created in every attractive spot on the continent. There was a great gathering at dinner, and as usual one heard all sorts of languages.
The table d'hote was served by waitresses dressed in the quaint and comely costume of the Swiss peasants. This consists of a simple gros de laine, trimmed with ashes of roses, with overskirt of sacre bleu ventre saint gris, cut bias on the off side, with facings of petit polonaise and narrow insertions of patĕ de fois gras backstitched to the mise en scene in the form of a jeu d'esprit. It gives to the wearer a singularly piquant and alluring aspect.
One of these waitresses, a woman of forty, had side whiskers reaching half way down her jaw. They were two fingers broad, dark in color, pretty thick, and the hairs were an inch long. One sees many women on the continent with quite conspicuous moustaches, but this was the only woman I saw who had reached the dignity of whiskers.
After dinner the guests of both sexes distributed themselves about the front porches and the ornamental grounds belonging to the hotel, to enjoy the cool air; but as the twilight deepened toward darkness, they gathered themselves together in that saddest and solemnest and most constrained of all
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