“O wad some power the giftie gie us
  To see oursels as ithers see us!”

Of course I notice such things immensely more in Berlin than in Paris, because the glory of a Court is much more than the twinkle of a republic.

I have worked myself into such a towering rage over this subject that there is no getting down to earth gracefully or gradually.  I have not polished off the matter by any manner of means.  I have only just started in, but a row of stars will cool me off.

* * * * *

Before I came to Berlin I heard so much about Unter den Linden, that magnificent street of the city, that I could scarcely wait to get to it.  I pictured it lined on both sides with magnificent linden-trees, gigantic, imposing, impressive.  I had had no intimate acquaintance with linden-trees—­and I wouldn’t know one now if I should see it—­but I had an idea from the name—­linden, linden—­that it was grand and waving; not so grand as an oak nor so waving as a willow, but a cross between the two.  I knew that I should see these great monarchs making a giant arch over this broad avenue and mingling their tossing branches overhead.

What I found when I arrived was a broad, handsome street.  But those lindens!  They are consumptive, stunted little saplings without sufficient energy to grow into real trees.  They are set so far apart that you have time to forget one before you come to another, and as to their appearance—­we have some just like them in Chicago where there is a leak in the gas-pipes near their roots.

On the day before Christmas we felt very low in our minds.  We had the doleful prospect ahead of us of eating Christmas dinner alone in a strange country, and in a hotel at that, so we started out shopping.  Not that we needed a thing, but it is our rule, “When you have the blues, go shopping.”  It always cures you to spend money.

Berlin shop-windows are much more fascinating even than those of Paris, because in Berlin there are so many more things that you can afford to buy that Paris seems expensive in comparison.  We became so much interested in the Christmas display that we did not notice the flight of time.  When we had bought several heavy things to weigh our trunks down a little more and to pay extra luggage on, I happened to glance at the sun, and it was just above the horizon.  It looked to be about four o’clock in the afternoon, and we had had nothing to eat since nine o’clock, and even then only a cup of coffee.  I felt myself suddenly grow faint and weak.  “Heavens!” I said, “see what time it is!  We have shopped all day and we have forgotten to get our luncheon.”

My companion glanced at her watch.

“It’s only half past eleven o’clock by my watch.  I couldn’t have wound it last night.  No, it is going.”

“Perhaps the hands stick.  They do on mine.  Whenever I wind it, I have to hit it with the hair-brush to start it; and even then it loses time every day.”