ll never probably know
to my dying day. They were very pretty little men, with pale faces, and
large, melancholy eyes; and they had beautiful little hands, and little
boots, and the finest little shirts, and black paletots lined with the
richest silk; and they had picture-books in several languages, English,
and French, and German, I remember. Two more aristocratic-looking little
men I never set eyes on. They were travelling with a very handsome, pale
lady in mourning, and a maid-servant dressed in black, too; and on the
lady's face there was the deepest grief. The little boys clambered
and played about the carriage, and she sat watching. It was a
railway-carriage from Frankfort to Heidelberg.

I saw at once that she was the mother of those children, and going to
part from them. Perhaps I have tried parting with my own, and not found
the business very pleasant. Perhaps I recollect driving down (with a
certain trunk and carpet-bag on the box) with my own mother to the end
of the avenue, where we waited--only a few minutes--until the whirring
wheels of that "Defiance" coach were heard rolling towards us as certain
as death. Twang goes the horn; up goes the trunk; down come the steps.
Bah! I see the autumn evening: I hear the wheels now: I smart the cruel
smart again: and, boy or man, have never been able to bear the sight of
people parting from their children.

I thought these little men might be going to school for the first time
in their lives; and mamma might be taking them to the doctor, and would
leave them with many fond charges, and little wistful secrets of love,
bidding the elder to protect his younger brother, and the younger to be
gentle, and to remember to pray to God always for his mother, who would
pray for her boy too. Our party made friends with these young ones
during the little journey; but the poor lady was too sad to talk except
to the boys now and again, and sat in her corner, pale, and silently
looking at them.

The next day, we saw the lady and her maid driving in the direction
of the railway-station, WITHOUT THE BOYS. The parting had taken place,
then. That night they would sleep among strangers. The little beds at
home were vacant, and poor mother might go and look at them. Well, tears
flow, and friends part, and mothers pray every night all over the
world. I dare say we went to see Heidelberg Castle, and admired the vast
shattered walls and quaint gables; and the Neckar running its bright
cour