"Yes!-my Agathe has given me the dearest little daughter ever seen in a picture-book, and who is to be named to-day after St. Elizabeth; and her sister Lisbeth is consoled at last for the loss of that scamp Max, and has taken to herself a worthier lover. Now, as we are poor people we must be economical in our rejoicings, and so have decided to keep both festivities together."

So, to my great joy, I was tucked under the arm of my former favourite, and with several others of cheaper quality was placed on the banquet table.

What a happy feast they had! What a treat for me to see the white-haired old father with tears of joy in his eyes, and to know that all his troubles were over! And pretty,

pretty Lisbeth! You could tell how much she had suffered by the lines on her fair young face, and the sweet serious smile that played round her lips. But the suffering was ended now. The calm look of happiness with which she met her lover's eyes told that- -even to a Bottle. Good, bustling Frau Agathe was important enough, first with the baby, and then with the betrothal. praised too, for her onion-tarts, her cherry and peach turnovers or kuchen, her superb fritters, and her barley-soup. Never did hausfrau receive such delicate compliments.

She was so

The dear little baby cried a good deal, as babies do, but was found to be remarkably like its father, its mother, its aunt, its grandfather, and two or three grand-aunts. That it was strikingly beautiful, no one doubted for a moment, and Agathe had spared no expense in procuring spotless white pillows tied with pink ribbons, for the little darling to lie on or rather between; so that its charms were seen to great advantage.

Am I getting flat? I fear so, and will only add that,

not having been drunk upon that occasion, I was carried back to my old quarters for a couple of years, after which a Cologne merchant purchased me; from his hands I passed into those of a hotel-keeper here. Pardon a Bottle's shortcomings in the way of style and eloquence. Farewell.

TOLD BY A PLEASANT OLD GENTLEMAN.

Half-an-hour's journey through the loveliest, fruitfullest country in the world, brought us to Heidelberg. Here the arrival and departure of each train is announced by a guard in splendid and solemn-looking livery; namely, silver mace, laced cocked-hat, sash, and epaulettes. Directly the train is due he calls out, as loudly as a London crier :

"To Darmstadt, Frankfort, Mentz," or as the case may be.

And the train once off, off goes the grand cocked-hat and the silver-laced coat and the whole insignia of his office. We were much amused at watching this process of disrobing; each article was carefully laid aside in a closet, and strange to say, the man's face entirely changed at the same time. Bringing out a cigar, he chatted gaily with a neighbour, apparently delighted to cast away the solemn face and the sonorous voice.

The whole thing is as good as a play.

HARRY LIGHTFOOT, the Younger.

150

CHAPTER XVII.

HEIDELBERG AND ITS HISTORY.

HO has not longed to see Heidelberg? Whether from the interest attached to so much sad history, or to so much architectural spendour, or to such lovely surrounding of scenery, Heidelberg will always be a tourist's paradise, and I must try to describe it as well as I can.

The task is a difficult one. With the silver Neckar, Schiller's Neckar, at its feet, and the wooded Geissberg above, stands half a palace, half a fortress, the story-telling old ruin in all its grand massiveness, giving us, for thought or amusement or artistic delight, pictures and true stories without end.

There is the beautiful palace of the Elector Frederick's English wife, who would be a queen, even if a bread-eating one, and the triumphal gateway with its everlasting ivy-leaves in stone, under which this ambitious lady passed into her German home; there is the hoary old tower of Rudolph, built in the feudal time, when all gentlemen were soldierknights, and all women fair damsels; and the superb Italian palace of Otho Henry, with its Rittersaal and poetic façade; and the ruined chapel of Saint Ulrich, with its knights in armour, all breaking away in dusty dismemberment; and the Rent Tower, with the linden trees growing on its summit, and the kings and electors in stone, who have stood side by side for centuries, and will perhaps stand centuries longer; and the wonderful tun, holding eight

hundred hogsheads, which none but a Loki* could empty, and which was filled on a merry, merry time, long ago, when the Elector and his court danced above it like frolicsome children.

Before inviting you to follow us through the pretty chestnut walk leading to the castle, let me say a word or two about Heidelberg and its history. Till the period of the Thirty Years' War, palmy days were enjoyed by this old city, then the residence of the Electors Palatine: 1622 saw the beginning of its worst misfortunes. After a siege of nearly a month, the cruel Tilly, of Magdeburg celebrity, gave up the town to be sacked; and the misery, the wrong, the irreparable disaster of such an act, are not to be conceived. But still more recklessly cruel was the devastation of Louis the Fourteenth's army under Turenne. Towns and villages, cornfields and granaries, smoked and blazed for miles round, and the poor Elector, Charles Louis, not knowing which way to turn himself, and almost broken-hearted, sent the French marshal a challenge of single combat. This, however, was not accepted. Later a second Tilly, some say a crueller one, by name Mèlac, took, sacked, and burnt the poor noble old city. But even Mèlac's brutality was surpassed in the next siege under Chamilly. The heart grows sick at reading such a story, only equalled by the French Revolution and the late revolt in India. Cold-blooded murder, insult, cruelty of every kind, fill the pages of Heidelberg history, especially this last one.

Those who admire the daring and the extraordinary kinds of greatness, will, I think, class Frederick the Victorious

* Loki, a giant-god of Norse Mythology, who emptied the sea at one draught.

among their heroes. Defender of the Palatinate, defier of the Pope, persecutor of the baron-brigands on the Neckar, he still found time for letters and milder pursuits, finally ending his days in the quiet of a cloister. When we find such men as Rupert founding an university, Otho Henry painting and chiselling statues, and Frederick the Fourth delighting in letters, we feel that the minds of these stern Middle-Age men must have had some inborn love of the good and noble, some aspirations after better things than mere fighting.

In degrading contrast to any peaceable manifestations of a rude age, has come down to us the following instance of Tilly's barbarous insensibility. It is recorded that he littered his stables with valuable books and manuscripts taken from the library of Heidelberg University, when straw failed! Being in want of litter for his cavalry, it occurred to him that loose papers would do as well; and lovers of books lost many treasures by this piece of ferocity.

And now we will visit the castle. Leaving the town behind us, and passing under a gateway where donkeys having bright pink saddles were to be had for the two girls, we ascended the Schloss hill, and were soon in the gardens. Here and there amid the luxuriant foliage around, we caught glimpses of heavy red walls and towers, but the first object seen distinctly was the triumphal archway erected for the English Electress Elizabeth, with its graceful sculptures of figures bearing cornucopiæ, and its ivied pillars. On either hand were traces of ramparts and subterraneous passages, and the deep fosse formerly surrounding the castle; though all three are now choked up with trees and shrubs. Passing under the ancient portcullis, whose teeth still hang overhead, and whose sculptured knights and quarterings are fresh as ever, we entered the inner part of the ruin, and were lost in