Chapter VIII

Soon, borne to Dresden for a leisure week,
With whom, one morning, should I chance to meet
But Elbert’s elder sister?—now grown staid
And matronly withal, a second wife,
In charge of half a dozen sturdy boys;
Though these I saw not then; but all alone,
Much flush’d and flurried, sweeping up the street,
She stopp’d, and cried abruptly, “Why, my friend,
Are you here, Norman?—you?—where from?—how long?
Not heard of you for years! That Elbert, drone,
Will never write the news. How glad I am
To see a man on hand when needed once!
Two girls, young friends of mine, just come to town,
Have lost their trunks,—and I my husband too,—
And there they stand amid such throngs of men!—
And did you note the statues in Berlin,
In all the streets?—of warriors, every one!
And these two girls, here travelling, by themselves,
Where might makes right, and woman slighted is,
Not strange it is their feelings toward you men,
In heat of indignation seething up,
Should brew some barm at times of bitterness!”