"Do you like that sort of thing?"

“I like making soups and puddings, but I prefer not to tidy rooms or wash up tea-things; it is such uninteresting work."

"You speak English very nicely!"

"We learned that a good many years ago.

I can read English story-books nicely now. I have just begun 'Amy Herbert' with my master.

It is a pretty book.

I read the Wide, Wide World !'"

Last year

The three girls grew quite sisterly by the time we caught sight of Marbach, with its quaint bridge of boats, its square wooden church tower, its narrow street which the cows, pigs, and geese had evidently appropriated to themselves, and its pretty green framework of willow banks.

With all our Schiller enthusiasm, we were too tired to look at anything before taking rest and food, so the good Herr Hausmann pioneered us at once to the village inn.

Passing through an entrance-hall full of wine-presses, pigs, and chickens, we followed the landlord upstairs into a large apartment, of smoky and dingy appearance, where, from the empty coffee-cups, beer-glasses, and tin soup-basins standing here and there, evidently many customers had already dropped in for refreshment.

Sweeping one end of the table clean with his elbows, our host very politely asked for orders, hoped we should find everything very comfortable, recommended some excellent apple-wine just broached, &c.

We ordered several drinkables, but preferred our own eatables, and certainly never made a heartier meal. We soon grew accustomed to the very close, smoky state of the room, and even the floors and tables appeared less dirty after a little time. When most of the good things had

vanished, every one's curiosity as to Schiller's house seemed doubly vigorous; accordingly, we set off in search of it at

once.

The village had a most washy, muddlesome look. Of pavement there was none, unless promiscuous large stones placed so as to contain nice little pools of eavesdroppings, could be called by that name. The cows, too, lived on terms of far too close intimacy with their owners, inhabiting the ground floor of the houses; and the pigs and geese seemed to be the chosen companions of the children in general. As to the heaps of refuse and manure fronting every dwelling, they certainly outdid any seen by Mrs. Hamilton in the cottages of Glenburnie.

Schiller's house looked wonderfully bright and clean, having been restored lately. It was built with one gable overlooking the street, and the window-frames, doors, and cornices were of dark polished wood, whilst the walls, being painted in pale pink with ornamented borders, reminded one of a gentleman's pocket-handkerchief.

A sharp little old man acted as cicerone, showing us the room in which our hero was born, his mother's spinningwheel, arm-chair, &c., two letters written by him in later years, portraits of himself taken at different periods of life, also those of his parents, a lock of his fine silvered hair, a laurel-wreath presented to him by some young admiring lady, and lastly the visitor's book, in which we all wrote our names for the fun of the thing.

So here the baby Schiller crowed his first crow, and took, as nurses say, "his first notice." Perhaps on the very spot where I stood, his little feet first touched the ground.

Did

he open his eyes and think the world very dirty, I wonder? Or did he take to it kindly, and play on the manure heaps

with the geese; or sit, as Tom Hood has it, as good as gold in the gutter, making of little dirt pies?" Heigho! I cannot think of the man, with his calm, godlike face, as the dirty Marbach child.

Amid such surroundings of hard coarse life, were passed the first years of that prophetic childhood. How he threw off any vulgar or low-minded impressions and influences; how he burst the chains of poverty, of mean birth, of early disadvantages; how he accomplished the high destiny for which he was born, I cannot stop to say. I may only pause to raise my hat reverently to the Poet of Goodness and Beauty, and recall to you that

"Lives of great men all remind us,

We can make our own sublime;

And departing, leave behind us

Footprints on the sands of time."

We returned home in the eil-wagen, or coach, a very slowgoing and squeezing conveyance, but carrying a good deal of dignity about it. We had a grand guard in police livery, besides the post-boy, who was wondrously got up in a skyblue tail-coat, yellow breeches, cocked-hat, and large horn appended to his shoulder by a smart tasselled girdle. Whenever we drove through a village he blew a tremendous blast, though the eil-wagen was crammed as full as a carpet-bag. I suppose he did it by way of practice, or, perhaps, to have the pleasure of disappointing some unlucky person very anxious to get to Stuttgart-though I don't wish to be uncharitable.

On reaching home we found the street filled with charityschool boys in marshalled order, all looking very pleased indeed. Having alighted, we discovered the cause.

Our next-door neighbour, who owns a large orchard, had become possessor of more windfall fruit than he could dispose of, and good-naturedly enough was doling it out to the boys by the handful. You should have seen the little joyful faces as the luscious pears and plums were distributed! I am sure that the kind donor enjoyed a rich feast vicariously. When all had been supplied, the boy-regiment filed off, performing an odd little martial step.

To-morrow we go into the country, to spend a week at Schloss Neubert-a real German castle, built in the year 1262. Our kind friends there have promised the young people some delightful excursions, and I think we shall all be very happy. Midsie is to be chronicler of the visit.

РАРА.

CHAPTER XX.

WE ARE GUESTS IN AN OLD GERMAN CASTLE.

N Count Neubert's old Schloss we have had the most romantic time of it: indeed, we only wanted ruffs and wimples, and plaited jerkins and plumed hats to make the ladies "faire damsels," and the gentlemen "courtlye knightes"

of the Middle Ages.

Early in the morning we left Stuttgart by the post-wagen, and after a lovely drive of some hours arrived at the dreamy little town of Asperg, where the carriage of our kind friend awaited us. In half-an-hour's time we had left the high

road and were winding round the foot of a vine-clad hill, on which the old castle stood.

"Oh! papa," cried Jessie, "what a large house! And what curious-shaped chimneys and windows it has; and how many rooms there must be in it. I am sure we shall lose

ourselves!"

Schloss Neubert, though built in the thirteenth century, is still as strong as ever; the good old maxim, "What is worth doing at all, is worth doing well," being in vogue among builders of that time. Architectural beauty it does not possess, but massiveness, dignity, heaviness in a large degree. What Jessie had taken for chimneys proved to be towers, of which there were four, looking to the four winds, as Harry said, being at each corner of the rambling, gigantic building.

As to windows, one must look twice to make sure that it has any, the walls being so wide and the windows so few and far between; but when once their existence is ascertained, the number increases upon the experienced eye like stars on a dark night, and you give up the task of counting them as hopeless. Passing under a gateway covered with quaint devices in grey stone, we found ourselves in an immense courtyard, where we were welcomed by our host.

"You will find this old place very strange, I dare say," he said, smilingly; "but it can give a warm welcome nevertheless. My wife and the young ones are anxiously looking out for you, and we have made lots of plans to vary your days, and make them pass pleasantly."

We followed him across the courtyard, and through a long corridor painted blue, paved with stone, having old pictures on the walls, and old cabinets, arms, tables, and clocks on every side. Then opening a door of trellised cast-iron,