one's every need was carried out by a very small and very enthusiastic
boy. "Is the hroom good, sare?" he asked, as he flung open the door of
the bedroom with a superb flourish. "Is the sham good, sare?" he asked
as he laid a pot of preserve on the table. He was the landlady's son
or grandson, and a better boy never lived, but his part, for all his
spirit and good humour, was a tragic one. For the greatest misfortune
that can come upon an hotel-keeper had crushed this house: Bædeker
had excised their star!

The landlady moved in the background, a disconsolate figure with
a grievance. She waylaid us as we went out and as we came in. Was
it not a good hotel? Was not the management excellent? Had we
any complaints? And yet--see--once she had a star and now it was
gone. Could we not help to regain it? Here was the secret of the
grandson's splendid zeal. The little fellow was fighting to hitch
the old hotel to a star once more, as Emerson had bidden.

Alas, it was in vain; for that was seven years ago, and I see that
Bædeker still withholds the distinction. What a variety of misfortune
this little world holds! While some of us are indulging our right
to be unhappy over a thousand trivial matters, such as illness and
disillusion, there are inn-keepers on the Continent who are staggering
and struggling under real blows.

I wondered if it were better to have had a star and lost it, than
never to have had a star at all. But I did not ask. The old lady's
grief was too poignant, her mind too practical, for such questions.

S'Gravenhage or Den Haag, or The Hague as we call it, being the seat
of the court, is at once the most civilised and most expensive of the