Madame Zamenoy had been at Paris, and took much delight in telling her friends that the carriage also was Parisian; but, in truth, it had come no further than from Dresden.

Josef Balatka and his daughter were very, very poor; but, poor as they were, they lived in a large house, which, at least nominally, belonged to old Balatka himself, and which had been his residence in the days of his better fortunes.

It was in the Kleinseite, that narrow portion of the town, which lies on the other side of the river Moldau--the further side, that is, from the so-called Old and New Town, on the western side of the river, immediately under the great hill of the Hradschin.

The Old Town and the New Town are thus on one side of the river, and the Kleinseite and the Hradschin on the other.

To those who know Prague, it need not here be explained that the streets of the Kleinseite are wonderful in their picturesque architecture, wonderful in their lights and shades, wonderful in their strange mixture of shops and palaces-- and now, alas! also of Austrian barracks--and wonderful in their intricacy and great steepness of ascent.