We are getting foreignized rapidly and with facility.

We are getting reconciled to halls and bedchambers with unhomelike stone floors and no carpets--floors that ring to the tread of one's heels with a sharpness that is death to sentimental musing.

We are getting used to tidy, noiseless waiters, who glide hither and thither, and hover about your back and your elbows like butterflies, quick to comprehend orders, quick to fill them; thankful for a gratuity without regard to the amount; and always polite--never otherwise than polite.

That is the strangest curiosity yet--a really polite hotel waiter who isn't an idiot.

We are getting used to driving right into the central court of the hotel, in the midst of a fragrant circle of vines and flowers, and in the midst also of parties of gentlemen sitting quietly reading the paper and smoking.