Let us strive to be good as much as we may, there is a secret sense of pleasure in doing wrong that shows what a hold wickedness has of us. I believe we flatter ourselves that we are cheating the devil all the while, because we intend to do right at last; but the danger is that the game comes to an end before we suspect, and there we are, "cleaned out," and our hand full of trumps. You'll say, "What has all this to say to the Rhine, or Mrs. Gore Hampton?" Nothing whatever. It only shows that, like the Reflections on a Broomstick, your point of departure bears no relation to the goal of your voyage. "What's the name of this village, Mr. Dodd?" whispers a soft voice from the deep recesses of the britschka. "This is Andernach, Madam," said I, opening my "John," for I find there's no doing without him. "It is one of the most ancient cities of the Rhine. It was called by the Romans--" "Never mind what it was called by the Romans; isn't there a legend about this ancient castle? To be sure there is; pray find it." And I go on mumbling about Drusus, and Roman camps, and vaulted portals. "Oh, it's not that," cries she, laughing. "There are two articles of traffic peculiar to this spot Millstones--" She puts her hand on my lips here, and I am unable to continue my reading, while she goes on: "I remember the legend now. It was a certain Siegfried, the Count Palatine of the Rhine, who, on his return from the Crusades, was persuaded by slanderous tongues to believe his wife had been faithless to him." "The wretch!--the Count, I mean." "So he was. He drove her out a wanderer upon the wide world, and she fled across the Rhine into that mountain country you see yonder, which then, as now, was all impenetrable forest There she passed years and years of solitary existence, unknown and friendless. There were no Mr. Dodds in those days, or, at least, she had not the good fortune to meet with them." I sigh deeply under the influence of such a glance, Tom, and she resumes,-- "At last, one day, when fatigued with the chase, and separated from his companions, the cruel Count throws himself down to rest beside a fountain; a lovely creature, attired gracefully but strangely in the skins of wild beasts--" "She did n't kill them herself?" said I, interrupting. "How absurd you are! Of course she did n't;" and she draws her own ermine mantle across her as she speaks, smoothing the soft fur with her softer hand. "The Count starts to his feet, and recognizes her in a moment, and at the same instant, too, he is so struck by the manifest protection Providence has vouchsafed her, that he listens to her tale of justification, and conducts her in triumph home,--his injured but adored wife. I think, really, people were better formerly than they are now,--more forgiving, or rather, I mean, more open to truth and its generous impulses."