"Therefore you ought to say, 'Better one hundred years of Europe than two cycles of Cathay.'" "I bow to custom," said I."Every one speaks of a bicycle as a wheel, and I shall not introduce the plural into the name of my good steed." "And you don't know where your Cathay is to be ?" she asked.
I smiled and shook my head.

"No," I answered, "but I hope my cycle will carry me safely through it." The doctor's daughter looked past me across the road.

"I wish I were a man," said she, "and could go off as I pleased, as you do! It must be delightfully independent." I was about to remark that too much independence is not altogether delightful, but she suddenly spoke: "You carry very little with you for a long journey," and as she said this she grasped the pickets of the gate more tightly.

I could see the contraction of the muscles of her white hands.

It seemed as if she were restraining something.
"Oh, this isn't all my baggage," I replied.