Warsaw is a gay and cheerful town, with fine streets and good shops, with a cold, gray climate, and a history as grim as that of any city in the world save Paris.  Like most cities, Warsaw has its principal street, and, like all things Polish, this street has a terrible name—­the Krakowski Przedmiescie.  It is in this Krakowski Faubourg that the Hotel de l’Europe stands, where history in its time has played a part, where kings and princes have slept, where the Jew Hermani was murdered, where the bodies of the first five victims of the Russian soldiery were carried after the massacre and there photographed, and, finally, where the great light from the West—­Miss Julie P. Mangles—­alighted one May morning, looking a little dim and travel-stained.

“Told you,” said Mr. Mangles to his sister, who for so lofty a soul was within almost measurable distance of snappishness—­“told you you would have nothing to complain of in the hotel, Jooly.”

But Miss Mangles was not to be impressed or mollified.  Only once before had her brother and niece seen this noble woman in such a frame of mind—­on their arrival at the rising town of New Canterbury, Massachusetts, when the deputation of Women Workers and Wishful Waiters for the Truth failed to reach the railway depot because they happened on a fire in a straw-hat manufactory on their way, and heard that the newest pattern of straw hat was to be had for the picking up in the open street.

There had been no deputation at Warsaw Station to meet Miss Mangles.  London had not recognized her.  Berlin had shaken its official head when she proposed to visit its plenipotentiaries, and hers was the ignoble position of the prophet—­not without honor in his own country—­who cannot get a hearing in foreign parts.

“This is even worse than I anticipated,” said Miss Mangles, watching the hotel porters in a conflict with Miss Netty Cahere’s large trunks.

“What is worse, Jooly?”

“Poland!” replied Miss Mangles, in a voice full of foreboding, and yet with a ring of determination in it, as if to say that she had reformed worse countries than Poland in her day.

“I allow,” said Mr. Mangles, slowly, “that at this hour in the morning it appears to be a one-horse country.  You want your breakfast, Jooly?”

“Breakfast will not put two horses to it, Joseph,” replied Miss Mangles, looking not at her brother, but at the imposing hotel concierge with a bland severity indicative of an intention of keeping him strictly in his place.

Miss Netty quietly relieved her aunt of the small impedimenta of travel, with a gentle deference which was better than words.  Miss Cahere seemed always to know how to say or do the right thing, or, more difficult still, to keep the right silence.  Either this, or the fact that Miss Mangles was conscious of having convinced her hearers that she was as expert in the lighter swordplay of debate as in the rolling platform period, somewhat alleviated the lady’s humor, and she turned towards the historic staircase, which had run with the blood of Jew and Pole, with a distinct air of condescension.