This day was in the early part of October, chill, bracing, and sunshiny. A very wearisome journey on the day before, had brought us to an old German town, where there was neither tourist nor English; but old embattled walls--Gothic houses, and churches dating far back--those picturesque rude centuries, when they knew the art of building, whatever other arts they did not know. Young and light of heart as we were, our fatigue vanished with the night, and when we had taken our coffee and our hard leathery rolls in the light, cold, carpetless _salle_ of our inn, we went out arm in arm for one of our long rambles, with no cicerone to disturb our enjoyment. We were not model sightseers--we did not find out what was to be admired beforehand, nor seek the lions--we were only two very young people much delighted with these novel scenes, and with each other, who were in no mood to be critical. We delighted to lose ourselves in these quaint old streets--to trace their curious intricacies, to find out the noble vistas here and there, when the high houses stretched along in perched and varied lines to the golden way, where there was some smoke and a great deal of sunshine, behind which lay the sky. We saw the churches, and admired and wondered at them, but our great fascination was in the streets, where everything savored of another land and time; the peasant dress, the characteristic features, the strange tongue, which, except when Harry spoke, was unintelligible to me, made all these streets animated pictures to my eager observation. I was a very good walker, and not easily wearied, and Harry was only too eager to do every thing I pleased. We came and went, enjoying every thing, and I think our fresh young English faces, our freedom, and vigor, and youthful happiness attracted some wistful glances from under the toil-worn, sun-burnt brows of these peasant people, about whom I was so curious; our enjoyment was so frank and honest, that it pleased even the unenjoying bystanders; and all the young waiters at the inn, who shook their heads at my elaborately conned questions in German, and drove me desperate with the voluble and anxious explanations of which I could not understand a word, had now a French dictionary on the side-table in the _salle_, which some one was always studying for my especial benefit--what with smiles and signs, and my English-French, and their newly acquired phrases, we managed to do a little conversation sometimes, though whether I or my young attendants would have been most barbarous to a Parisian, even I cannot tell--though I dare say the palm would have been given to me.