“What a pity you did not arrive earlier, Alfred; we have spent the whole morning sight-seeing, and now the horses are being put-to, and we have scarcely ten minutes to ask each other the thousand questions which——But come to our rooms—we cannot possibly talk before these people.” “They would not understand us,” said Hamilton, following them up the stairs, by no means displeased with the arrangement. Madame Rosenberg soon became impatient at the duration of his absence, and leaving word with the waiter that Mr. Hamilton might follow them to St. Peter’s cellar, she proposed herself as guide, and they set out on their excursion. Hamilton accompanied his uncle and cousins to their very handsome travelling-carriage, and as he bade them adieu for the twentieth time, his uncle called out, “God bless you, Alfred! I shall tell your father and uncle Ralph that I found you greatly improved. If they had kept you in London, your brother John would have spoiled you, and made you just as good-for-nothing as he is himself. Nothing like travelling for enlarging the ideas. Good-by!” The waiter informed Hamilton that the ladies were gone to St. Peter’s cellar. “Major Stultz, you mean?” said Hamilton. “No, sir—the ladies—perhaps they have gone to look at the excavation in the rock. The cellar is in the mountain, and is worth seeing.” The monks of St. Peter are the actual proprietors of this cellar, which adjoins, and in fact is still a part of the monastery; it is the wine from their Hungarian vineyards which is there sold, and the entrance to the drinking-rooms is from the principal quadrangle. Arrived there, Hamilton immediately accosted a man who, in a jacket and apron, and with a green velvet cap on his head, stood before the entrance of the excavation.