hat he was going on to see the most all-fired
old Methuselah of a town in Yurrup, and that he guessed that so much
travelling alone was enough to send an intelligent, active citizen
into the melancholy ward of a daft house, we took the pretty broad
hint and suggested that we should join forces. We found, on comparing
notes afterwards, that we had each intended to speak with some
diffidence or hesitation so as not to appear too eager, such not being
a good compliment to the success of our married life; but the effect
was entirely marred by our both beginning to speak at the same
instant--stopping simultaneously and then going on together again.
Anyhow, no matter how, it was done; and Elias P. Hutcheson became one
of our party. Straightway Amelia and I found the pleasant benefit;
instead of quarrelling, as we had been doing, we found that the
restraining influence of a third party was such that we now took every
opportunity of spooning in odd corners. Amelia declares that ever
since she has, as the result of that experience, advised all her
friends to take a friend on the honeymoon. Well, we 'did' Nurnberg
together, and much enjoyed the racy remarks of our Transatlantic
friend, who, from his quaint speech and his wonderful stock of
adventures, might have stepped out of a novel. We kept for the last
object of interest in the city to be visited the Burg, and on the day
appointed for the visit strolled round the outer wall of the city by
the eastern side.

The Burg is seated on a rock dominating the town and an immensely deep
fosse guards it on the northern side. Nurnberg has been happy in that
it was never sacked; had it been it would certainly not be so spick
and span perfect as it is at present. The ditch has not been used for
centuries, and now its base is spread with tea-gardens and orchards,
of which some of the trees are of quite respectable growth. As we
wandered round the wall, dawdling in the hot July sunshine, we often
paused to admire the views spread before us, and in especial the great
plain covered with towns and villages and bounded with a blue line of
hills, like a landscape of Claude Lorraine. From this we always turned
with new delight to the city itself, with its myriad of quaint old
gables and acre-wide red roofs dotted with dormer windows, tier upon
tier. A little to our right rose the towers of the Burg, and nearer
still, standing grim, the Torture Tower, which was, and is, perhaps,
the most interesti