There was one redeeming feature. The people of the house were
nice-looking and well-dressed. But experience has taught me to view such
a phenomenon in French towns of humbler rank with somewhat mixed
feelings. When the house is superintended with a keen and watchful eye
by a young lady of fashionable appearance, who takes a personal interest
in a solitary traveller, and suggests an evening's _course_ on the lake,
or a morning's drive to some good view, and makes herself most winning
and agreeable; who takes the words, moreover, out of the mouth of a man
meditating an ordinary dinner, and assures him that she knows exactly
what he wants, and he shall be well satisfied, with a sisterly air that
makes the idea of francs and sous not sordid only, but impossible; I
have slowly learned to expect that this fashion and condescension will
appear in the bill. Prettiness is a very expensive item in such a case;
and as these three were all combined to a somewhat remarkable degree at
the Hotel d'Angleterre, the eventual bill made me angry, and I should
certainly try the Hotel de Geneve on any future visit to Annecy.
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