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.
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