clung to your
remembrance of him. He came, and the reality dispelled all illusions."

"I do not understand philosophy," said she. "I only know that I think
that Herr Mueller had lost all respect for me from what his sister had
told him; and I know that I am going away; and I trust I shall be
happier in Frankfort than I have been here of late days." So saying, she
left the room.

I was wakened up on the morning of the fourteenth by the merry ringing
of church bells, and the perpetual firing and popping off of guns and
pistols. But all this was over by the time I was up and dressed, and
seated at breakfast in my partitioned room. It was a perfect October
day; the dew not yet off the blades of grass, glistening on the delicate
gossamer webs, which stretched from flower to flower in the garden,
lying in the morning shadow of the house. But beyond the garden, on
the sunny hill-side, men, women, and children were clambering up the
vineyards like ants,--busy, irregular in movement, clustering together,
spreading wide apart,--I could hear the shrill merry voices as I
sat,--and all along the valley, as far as I could see, it was much the
same; for every one filled his house for the day of the vintage, that
great annual festival. Lottchen, who had brought in my breakfast, was
all in her Sunday best, having risen early to get her work done and go
abroad to gather grapes. Bright colours seemed to abound; I could see
dots of scarlet, and crimson, and orange through the fading leaves; it
was not a day to languish in the house; and I was on the point of going
out by myself, when Herr Mueller came in to offer me his sturdy arm, and
help me in walking to the vineyard. We crept through the garden scented
with late flowers and sunny fruit,--we passed through the gate I had so
often gazed at from the easy-chair, and were in the busy vineyard; great
baskets lay on the grass already piled nearly full of purple and yellow
grapes. The wine made from these was far from pleasant to my taste; for
the best Rhine wine is made from a smaller grape, growing in closer,
harder clusters; but the larger and less profitable grape is by far the
most picturesque in its mode of growth, and far the best to eat into the
bargain. Wherever we trod, it was on fragrant, crushed vine-leaves;
every one we saw had his hands and face stained with the purple juice.
Presently I sat down on a sunny bit of grass, and my host left me to go
farther afield, to look after th