ue, and that many such great and
sudden catastrophes had happened.

"I can't understand it," Rupert said. "Of course one could imagine
a sea or river breaking through a dyke and covering low lands, but
that the whole country should sink, and there be deep water over
the spot, appears unaccountable."

"The learned believe," Maria said, "that deep down below the
surface of the land lies a sort of soil like a quicksand, and that
when the river deepens its bed so that its waters do enter this
soil it melts away, leaving a great void, into which the land above
does sink, and is altogether swallowed up."

"It is a marvellously uncomfortable feeling," Rupert said, "to
think that one may any night be awoke with a sudden crash, only to
be swallowed up."

"Such things do not happen often," Maria said; "and the districts
that suffer are after all but small in comparison to Holland. So I
read that in Italy the people do build their towns on the slopes of
Vesuvius, although history says that now and again the mountain
bubbles out in irruption, and the lava destroys many villages, and
even towns. In other countries there are earthquakes, but the
people forget all about them until the shock comes, and the houses
begin to topple over their heads."

"You are right, no doubt," Rupert said. "But to a stranger the
feeling, at first, of living over a great quicksand, is not
altogether pleasant.

"Tomorrow the doctor says I may leave my room. My own idea is that
I need never have been kept there at all."

"If there had been any great occasion for you to have moved about,
no doubt you might have done so," Maria said; "but you might have
thrown back your cure, and instead of your bones knitting well and
soundly, as the leech says they are in a fair way to do, you might
have made but a poor recovery. Dear me, what impatient creatures
boys are!"

"No, indeed I am not impatient," Rupert said. "You have all made me
so comfortable and happy, that I should indeed be ungrateful were I
to be impatient. I only want to be about again that I may spare you
some of the trouble which you bestow upon me."

"Yes, that is all very well and very pretty," Maria said, laughing;
"but I know that you are at heart longing to be off to join your
regiment, and take part in all their marching and fighting. Do you
know, an officer who came here with you after that terrible fight
near Antwerp, told me that you covered yourself with glory there?"

"I covere