, and see
how every foot of ground is economized for the vineyards. Where the
hill-sides are too steep for cultivation, they are formed into
terraces, as you see them."

The steamer stopped a few moments at Bingen, which contains about
seventy-five hundred inhabitants.

"On our left, now, are the dominions of the King of Prussia--the
Rhenish provinces. On our right, as before, is the Duchy of Nassau.
What do you think of the Rhine now?" asked Dr. Winstock.

"It is improving, certainly," laughed Paul. "The scenery is really very
grand and very fine. I will give it up now. It is finer than the
Hudson. But where are the old castles?"

"There is one of them," answered the doctor, pointing to a ruin which
crowned a hill on the right. "That is the Castle of Ehrenfels. There is
a legend connected with about every one of them. There is the Mouse
Tower."

The doctor pointed to a stone structure rising from the river a short
distance from the shore. It was certainly a very romantic building, and
in a very romantic situation.

"What is the story about this tower?" asked Paul.

"If you take Southey's works when you return to the ship, you will find
in them, 'The Tradition of Bishop Hatto.' He was the Archbishop of
Mayence, and during a famine kept his granaries, well filled with food,
locked, and, by his own profusion and high living, excited his starving
subjects to revolt. The prelate ordered the rebels to be arrested,
confined them in a building, and set it on fire. Not content with this
outrage, he added insult to injury by mocking the wail of the
sufferers, and comparing their cries with the squeaking of mice. In the
night which followed the diabolical deed, a swarm of mice penetrated to
the apartments of the archbishop's palace, attacked him, and tried to
tear the flesh from his bones. Appalled by this poetic justice, the
cruel prelate fled, and, taking to the river, reached this insulated
tower. Suspending his bed in the upper part of the structure, he
struggled to escape from the mice, as merciless as he had himself been.
But the mice followed him, and he could not avoid the doom that was in
store for him. Vainly he resisted. The rats attacked him, and he
suffered a lingering and horrible death. It is but fair to add that
history gives the archbishop a different character. Do you happen to
know the meaning of the German word _mauth_?"

"A duty, or a toll," replied Grace.

"The German for mouse is _maus_, and pro