The Wife Expected That They Would Find Some One In Egypt Who
Spoke English; She Had Expected They Would Speak French In Spain, But
Had Been Disappointed.
They had left their warm things at Gibraltar and
were almost frozen already.
They were as good and sweet and nice as they
could be, and we were truly sorry to part with them and leave them to
what seemed to be a mistake which they were not to blame for.
I wish that all Europeans and all Europeanized Americans knew how to
value such incorruptible con-nationals, who would, I was sure, carry
into the deepest dark of Egypt and over the whole earth undimmed the
light of our American single-heartedness. I would have given something
to know from just which kind country town and companionable commonwealth
of our Union they had come, but I would not have given much, for I knew
that they could have come from almost any. In their modest satisfaction
with our own order of things, our language, our climate, our weather,
they would not rashly condemn those of other lands, but would give them
a fair chance; and, if when they got home again, they would have to
report unfavorably of the Old World to the Board of Trade or the Woman's
Club, it would not be without intelligent reservations, even generous
reservations. They would know much more than they knew before they came
abroad, and if they had not seen Europe distinctly, but in a glass
darkly, still they would have seen it and would be the wiser and none
the worse for it.
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