“Amen!” was the earnestly murmured answer.
Mrs. Channing was delighted with Borcette. Poor Mr. Channing could as yet see little of it. It was a small, unpretending place, scarcely ten minutes’ distance from Aix-la-Chapelle, to which she could walk through an avenue of trees. She had never before seen a bubbling fountain of boiling water, and regarded those of Borcette with much interest. The hottest, close to the Hotel Rosenbad, where they sojourned, boasted a temperature of more than 150° Fahrenheit; it was curious to see it rising in the very middle of the street. Other things amused her, too; in fact, all she saw was strange, and bore its peculiar interest. She watched the factory people flocking to and fro at stated hours in the day—for Borcette has its factories for woollen fabrics and looking-glasses—some thousands of souls, their walk as regular and steady as that of school-girls on their daily march under the governess’s eye. The men wore blue blouses; the women, neat and clean, wore neither bonnets nor caps; but their hair was twisted round their heads, as artistically as if done by a hairdresser. Not one, women or girls, but wore enormous gold earrings, and the girls plaited their hair, and let it hang behind.
What a contrast they presented to their class in England! Mrs. Channing had, not long before, spent a few weeks in one of our large factory towns in the north. She remembered still the miserable, unwholesome, dirty, poverty-stricken appearance of the factory workers there—their almost disgraceful appearance; she remembered still the boisterous or the slouching manner with which they proceeded to their work; their language anything but what it ought to be. But these Prussians looked a respectable, well-conducted, well-to-do body of people.
Where could the great difference lie? Not in wages; for the English were better paid than the Germans. We might go abroad to learn economy, and many other desirable accompaniments of daily life. Nothing amused her more than to see the laundresses and housewives generally, washing the linen at these boiling springs; wash, wash, wash! chatter, chatter, chatter! She thought they must have no water in their own homes, for they would flock in numbers to the springs with their kettles and jugs to fill them.
It was Doctor Lamb who had recommended them to the Hotel Rosenbad; and they found the recommendation a good one. Removed from the narrow, dirty, offensive streets of the little town, it was pleasantly situated. The promenade, with its broad walks, its gay company (many of them invalids almost as helpless as Mr. Channing), and its musical bands, was in front of the hotel windows; a pleasant sight for Mr. Channing until he could get about himself. On the heights behind the hotel were two churches; and the sound of their services would be wafted down in soft, sweet strains of melody. In the neighbourhood there was a shrine, to which pilgrims flocked. Mrs. Channing regarded them with interest, some with their alpen-stocks, some in fantastic dresses, some with strings of beads, which they knelt and told; and her thoughts went back to the old times of the Crusaders. All she saw pleased her. But for her anxiety as to what would be the effect of the new treatment upon her husband, and the ever-lively trouble about Arthur, it would have been a time of real delight to Mrs. Channing.
They could not have been better off than in the Hotel Rosenbad. Their rooms were on the second floor—a small, exquisitely pretty sitting-room, bearing a great resemblance to most continental sitting-rooms, its carpet red, its muslin curtains snowy white; from this opened a bed-room containing two beds, all as conveniently arranged as it could be. Their meals were excellent; the dinner-table especially being abundantly supplied. For all this they paid five francs a day each, and the additional accommodation of having the meals served in their room, on account of Mr. Channing, was not noted as an additional expense. Their wax-lights were charged extra, and that was all. I think English hotel-keepers might take a lesson from Borcette!
The doctor gave great hopes of Mr. Channing. His opinion was, that, had Mr. Channing come to these baths when he was first taken ill, his confinement would have been very trifling. “You will find the greatest benefit in a month,” said the doctor, in answer to the anxious question, How long the restoration might be in coming. “In two months you will walk charmingly; in three, you will be well.” Cheering news, if it could only be borne out.
“I will not have you say ‘If,’” cried Mr. Huntley, who had made one in consultation with the doctor. “You are told that it will be so, under God’s blessing, and all you have to do is to anticipate it.”
Mr. Channing smiled. They were stationed round the open window of the sitting-room, he on the most comfortable of sofas, Mrs. Channing watching the gay prospect below, and thinking she should never tire of it. “There can be no hope without fear,” said he.
“But I would not think of fear: I would bury that altogether,” said Mr. Huntley. “You have nothing to do here but to take the remedies, look forward with confidence, and be as happy as the day’s long.”