They coursed up a large river, much broader than the Rhine. The sea-gulls circled over the yellow water, and rested on the sand-banks and the muddy shores. The fishing-boats tacked in zig-zags all about, and throngs of ships and steamboats came to meet them. At last there loomed in the distance, enshrouded with a grey fog, a giant city--a dark maze of masts and chimneys and towers. It was sombre, awful, incomprehensible. If Johannes had not been so absorbed in thinking of the two children, he would have paid more attention to the city. As it was, he only accepted it for a fact--the unforeseen shadow of a mysterious substance--an ominous premonition, like the rumbling of the ground preceding an earthquake: an instant later all fear is over, and one thinks no further about it. So it was with Johannes; the great city, the miners--everything was forgotten, when he heard the loved voices of the two little girls. * * * * * They lived in a country-seat which to Johannes seemed a small palace. It was built of red brick and grey limestone, and stood on the summit of a hill, close by the shore. In the garden were dark cedar-trees and holm-oaks, and large plots of rhododendrons. The grass was short and even--quite like green velvet; and through it led neat, trim paths of yellow gravel. The day was far from being so pleasant as Johannes had expected. In fact, it was very unpleasant. To be waited upon by a lackey, as one conies without a trunk, from a third-class carriage, is far from funny. Johannes had not heretofore had such a trying experience. Indoors, it was very still and stately. The children were at their lessons, and for the first hour were invisible. Johannes received an unfavorable impression of fashionable life. He wished that he had not come. His hopefulness and confidence suddenly took flight. He tripped over a rug of white bearskin, and ran against a glass door, thinking it was open--just as if he were a bumblebee behind a window-pane. He wondered which was the quickest way out, and wished he were with Markus again, in the small tavern. He was not very far from crying. On a couch in the quiet reception-room, beside a softly crackling coal fire, sat the countess. Johannes strode up to her, and made an awkward bow. A number of dogs, as many as seven, snapped and yapped about his shin-bones. He thought of his dicky and the green glass studs, and felt that they could be making next to no impression. The countess looked as if she did not quite remember who he was, nor what could have been his object in coming. "Sit down," she said, in English, with a formal smile, and a weary tone of voice; "I hope you have had a pleasant journey." Johannes took a seat and, as he did so, observed that some one else was in the room. He tried again to bow, but his attempt was unnoticed.