your few frostbitten vines. The old man picked some plumbs, and served them to us with sylvan grace on a grape-leaf. We fell into conversation. He told me the story of his life; it was common enough, but there was a gentleness and sensibility in his voice and expression very uncommon. He came from Alsace, and was travelling in this vicinity with his wife and only surviving child, a girl, "trying to forget home;" for he had lost at short intervals his three sons, when his daughter was asked in marriage by a young man of Braubach. The parents gave their consent, and, wisely resolving to have but one home among them, he bought this old chateau, and converted it into the Hotel zur Phillipsburg; and here he and his wife have reposed under the spreading shadow of their posterity. "I am not rich," he said, "but I have enough. I thought myself happy; my life was gliding in the midst of my family and my vines; but man, with whom nothing lasts, should not call himself happy. Seven months ago my wife died"—the old man's eyes filled—"it was a sudden and a hard blow; we must bow before the stroke of the good God! My daughter has four children. I am their instructer. In my youth I was at college, and, afterward being engaged in commerce, I travelled: so I can teach them French, Dutch, and Italian. Certainly I am not a severe master; but they love me, and love can do more than fear. The youngest is sometimes too much for me. He is a superb boy, madame! When I say, 'Julius, come to your lessons!' he answers, 'Oh, it is too fine
