the stubborn rocks, that toss them away
instantly. But never mind : down in the valley
we can see also a mob of flowers with uplifted
heads— "the painted populace of the plains,"
as Gray has sung — and I warrant that there
is not a blossom in the throng that is not
staring upwards with a few pearls in its eye.

Then we go back and leave the roar behind;
and, at a short distance before us the wild
rocks are enlivened by the Apple-green Spencer.
Smoking dishes await us at the inn, and, to
my discomfort, also smoking men. The house
is full of Berlin people, who are making a
great noise, wrangling fearfully, and drying
their canary-coloured cloaks. I tremble
lest Gerl should be worried out of her good
temper. But she flits about like an apple-
green will-o'-the-wisp, and gives her orders so
briskly, that one feels quite to tingle and glow
as they strike one's ear, sharply, like bracing
morning air; they come about our eyes like
a brisk wind on a clear blue winter's day, and
work our spirits into such elasticity, that it
is difficult to resist an impulse to start up and
perform the behests of the Apple-green
Imperatrix oneself. Her father, immovable and
stolid, sits by the fire, and relates in an even
unmitigated tone to old Schweinermichel the
guide, a few facts concerning the time when
he served under the famous Archduke Charles,
and was encamped before Amberg and Würzburg
against the French.

I declare that Gerl is quite a mother to me;
perhaps because I am the only person who is
not making a noise. She protects me tenderly
against the guests from Berlin. I like to have
an apple-green mother; much better, indeed,
than to have a grandfather who will not cease
to talk military despatches, under any
circumstances whatever. This is the fourth time I
have overheard the siege of Amberg; but
the rascal Schweinermichel has not heard it
more than twice; for he has been asleep
during the last two recitals. To be sure,
however, he has had the advantage over me
on previous occasions. The Berliners begin
to wrangle so horribly, that I am sent to bed;
and I go meekly. Gerl, of course, knows what
is best. Long after I am gone to bed, I hear
the noise, and hear the hostess busy with the
guests. At day-break I awake, but I hear
Gerl's feet already trotting about the house.
When does she sleep?

The breakfast-table makes me fancy for a
minute that I went to bed in Austria, and have
come downstairs this morning into Scotland.
Then there are glasses playing with a bit of
sun upon the sideboard, and they stand
beside a flask of brandy. I am not to issue
unarmed against the sword-blades of the
mountain winds. Gerl helps me to put on my
outer coverings, ail dry and cleanly brushed;
she performs some minor operations, and—
incredible! — she sews me on a button. She is
the best of mothers!

That is, she would be the best of mothers
but for her bill. How, out of that little
domestic haven of a pocket, there can come
this large, unconscionable bill, passes my
comprehension. The man in the grey coat
did not astonish Peter Schlemihl more, when
he pulled three horses out of a side pocket,
which had already produced a tent, a
Turkey carpet, and a telescope, than Gerl
astonished me, when she put her hand
into her apron pocket and produced this
elephantine bill. After all, there is this to be
said of the true mothers, that for their money,
their trouble, or their love, neither on paper,
nor within their hearts, can sons say that they
keep Debtor or Creditor account ; though
we pay nothing, they will not remind us of a
bill. Feeling a little apple-green myself, or
like a man who has been so considered by his
hostess, I discharge the reckoning without a
grunt. After all, Gerl is in the right ; what
cares she for the fine lords and Berliners, or for
a poor roving Englishman, except as the
materials of trade ? She is true to the nature
of her sex, in working these materials up
energetically. Besides, it is the only way she
has of — extorting certainly, extorting — our
respect, by showing to us foreigners that she
also is civilised. I pay Gerl's bill ; and as I
go away, she stretches out her hand so kindly,
and looks so true-hearted, that I advise you,
if you go to the Pinzgau and get such a bill
as this out of an apron pocket, to pay it
without grunting, for the sake of getting
your good-bye said generously, without any
extra charge.

GASTEIN BATHS

FROM Gerl's inn to Gastein, in the Pinzgau,
is not a long journey. I think if you can
imagine an old German giant out of " The
Niebelungen Lied," with an elegant cravat
and a diamond pin under his uncombed
beard, you can form some notion of Gastein.
But, although that will give you a notion of
the wildness of this fashionable place, it will
leave out of account what is by no means to
be omitted, the element of beauty in its green
slopes and woods. Gastein itself is an odd
mixture of lowly huts and lofty palaces, of
Alpine dust and drawing-room perfumes.
The Gastein peasant girls, in picturesque
attire, have the advantage of studying in the
streets the latest fashions from Paris; the
cowherd, in his thick-nailed shoes, if he will not
mind where he is going, may, perchance, tread
on the japanned toes of a Prussian minister.
You read daily, in the visitors' book of the
hotel, names so high-born, that you walk about
the corridors with reverence; and then many
of the people seem to be such Cooks, Bruces,
and Mungo Parks, that you feel quite ashamed
of yourself for having neglected to call at
Smyrna or St. Petersburg upon the way to
Gastein.

Then you step out into the fresh air and
take a ramble in the woods, and do not feel
oppressed so greatly by the dignity of nature's
decorations, as you have been by the stars