t to see the sacred staircase. Rollo went with them. The
staircase seemed to be at the main entrance to the church: the party had
gone round to a door in the side where they came in.

The sacred stairs occupied the centre of the hall in which they were
placed. There were on the sides two plain and common flights of stairs,
for people to go up and down in the usual way. The sacred stairs in the
centre could only be ascended and descended on the knees.

The side stairs were separated from the central flight by a solid
balustrade or wall, not very high, so that people who came to see the
sacred steps could stand on the side steps and look over. The flight of
sacred steps was very wide, and was built of a richly variegated marble,
of brown, red, and yellow colors, intermingled together in the stone;
and some of the stains were said to have been produced by the blood of
Christ. Here and there, too, on the different steps of the staircase,
were to be seen little brass plates let into the stone, beneath which
were small caskets containing sacred relics of various kinds, such as
small pieces of wood of the true cross, and fragments of the bones of
saints and apostles. Neither Mr. George nor Rollo took much interest in
this exhibition; and so, giving the sacristan a small piece of money,
they went back to their carriage. As Rollo got into the carriage that he
had come in, he saw that Minnie was seated in hers, and she nodded her
head when Rollo's carriage moved away, to bid him good by.

Mr. George and Rollo passed one or two other very picturesque and
venerable looking ruins on the way up the river, but they did not stop
to go and explore any of them. In one place, too, they rode along a sort
of terrace, where the view over the river, and over the fields and
vineyards beyond, was perfectly enchanting. Mr. George said he had never
before seen so beautiful a view. It was at a place where the road had
been walled up high along the side of a hill, at some distance from the
river, so that the view from the carriage, as it moved rapidly along,
extended over the whole valley. The fields and vineyards, the groves and
orchards, the broad river, the zigzag paths leading up the mountain
sides, the steamers and canal boats gliding up and down over the surface
of the water, and the mountains beyond, with the rocky summit of
Drachenfels, crowned with its castle, towering among them, combined to
make the whole picture appear like a scene of