dle horses are grazing, meeting
peasants in neat garments, peasant women with shining gold ornaments
under snow-white lace caps, citizens in gay attire and children released
from school, can easily fancy that even nature wears a holiday garb and
glitters in brighter green, more brilliant blue, and more varied
ornaments of flowers than on work-days.

A joyous Sunday mood doubtless filled the minds of the burghers, who
to-day were out of doors on foot, in large over-crowded wooden wagons, or
gaily-painted boats on the Rhine, to enjoy the leisure hours of the day
of rest, eat country bread, yellow butter, and fresh cheese, or drink
milk and cool beer, with their wives and children.

The organist, Wilhelm, had long since finished playing in the church, but
did not wander out into the fields with companions of his own age, for he
liked to use such days for longer excursions, in which walking was out of
the question.

They bore him on the wings of the wind over his native plains, through
the mountains and valleys of Germany, across the Alps to Italy. A spot
propitious for such forgetfulness of the present and his daily
surroundings, in favor of the past and a distant land, was ready. His
brothers, Ulrich and Johannes, also musicians, but who recognized
Wilhelm's superior talent without envy and helped him develop it, had
arranged for him, during his stay in Italy, a prettily-furnished room in
the narrow side of the pointed roof of the house, from which a broad door
led to a little balcony. Here stood a wooden bench on which Wilhelm liked
to sit, watching the flight of his doves, gazing dreamily into the
distance or, when inclined to artistic creation, listening to the
melodies that echoed in his soul.

This highest part of the house afforded a beautiful prospect; the view
was almost as extensive as the one from the top of the citadel, the old
Roman tower situated in the midst of Leyden. Like a spider in its web,
Wilhelm's native city lay in the midst of countless streams and canals
that intersected the meadows. The red brick masonry of the city wall,
with its towers and bastions, washed by a dark strip of water, encircled
the pretty place as a diadem surrounds a young girl's head; and like a
chaplet of loosely-bound thorns, forts and redoubts extended in wider,
frequently broken circles around the walls. The citizens' herds of cattle
grazed between the defensive fortifications and the city wall, while
beside and beyond th