Rhineland (Germany) -- Description and travel -- Juvenile literature
"I suppose so; but I don't care much about these things, uncle George.
Let us go up into the towers."
"Very well," said Mr. George, "we will go and see if we can find the
way."
So our travellers went on along the ambulatory, and thence into the
aisles and nave of the church, stopping, however, every few minutes to
gaze at some gorgeously decorated altar, or large and beautiful
painting, or quaint old effigy, or at some monument, or inscription, or
antique and time-worn sculpture. There were a great many other parties
of visitors, consisting of ladies and gentlemen, and sometimes children,
rambling about the church at the same time. Rollo observed, as he passed
these groups, that some were talking French, some German, and some
English. Here and there, too, Rollo passed plain-looking people, dressed
like peasants, who were kneeling before some altar or crucifix, saying
their prayers or counting their beads, and wearing a very devout and
solemn air. Some of these persons took no notice of Mr. George and Rollo
as they passed them; but others would follow them with their eyes,
scrutinizing their dress and appearance very closely until they got by,
though they continued all the time to move their lips and utter
inarticulate murmurings.
"I don't think those girls are attending much to their prayers," said
Rollo.
"I'm afraid the girls in the Protestant churches in America do not
attend to them much better," said Mr. George. "There is a great deal of
time spent in seeing how people are dressed by worshippers in other
churches than the Roman Catholic."
At length Rollo caught a view of the man who had held the plate for a
contribution, at the time when he and Mr. George came in at the church
door. He was walking to and fro, with his plate in his hand, in a
distant portion of the church. Rollo immediately offered to go to him,
and ask how he and Mr. George were to get to the towers. So he left Mr.
George looking at a great painting, and walked off in that direction.
Just before Rollo came to the man, his attention was attracted by a girl
of about twelve or thirteen years of age, who was strolling about the
church at a little distance before him, swinging her bonnet in her hand.
She was very pretty, and her dark eyes shone with a very brilliant, but
somewhat roguish expression. She stopped when she saw Rollo coming, and
eyed him with a mingled look of curiosity and pleasure.
Rollo, observing that this young lady appeared not to be particularly
afraid of him, thought he would accost her.
"Do you speak French?" said he in French, as he was walking slowly by
her. He supposed from her appearance that she was a French girl, and so
he spoke to her in that language.
The girl replied, not in French, but in English,--
"Yes, and English too."
"How did you know that I spoke English?" said Rollo, speaking now in
English himself.
"By your looks," said the girl.
"What is your name?" asked Rollo.
"Tell me your name first," said the girl.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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