e listened with a forgetful joy to her questions and exclamations
at the stir and liveliness of a city from which was to commence their
pilgrimage along the Rhine. And indeed the scene was rife with the
spirit of that people at once so active and so patient, so daring on
the sea, so cautious on the land. Industry was visible everywhere; the
vessels in the harbour, the crowded boat putting off to land, the
throng on the quay,--all looked bustling and spoke of commerce. The city
itself, on which the skies shone fairly through light and fleecy clouds,
wore a cheerful aspect. The church of St. Lawrence rising above the
clean, neat houses, and on one side trees thickly grouped, gayly
contrasted at once the waters and the city.

"I like this place," said Gertrude's father, quietly; "it has an air of
comfort."

"And an absence of grandeur," said Trevylyan.

"A commercial people are one great middle-class in their habits and
train of mind," replied Vane; "and grandeur belongs to the extremes,--an
impoverished population and a wealthy despot."

They went to see the statue of Erasmus, and the house in which he was
born. Vane had a certain admiration for Erasmus which his companions did
not share; he liked the quiet irony of the sage, and his knowledge of
the world; and, besides, Vane was at that time of life when philosophers
become objects of interest. At first they are teachers; secondly,
friends; and it is only a few who arrive at the third stage, and find
them deceivers. The Dutch are a singular people. Their literature
is neglected, but it has some of the German vein in its strata,--the
patience, the learning, the homely delineation, and even some traces of
the mixture of the humorous and the terrible which form that genius for
the grotesque so especially German--you find this in their legends and
ghost-stories. But in Holland activity destroys, in Germany indolence
nourishes, romance.

They stayed a day or two at Rotterdam, and then proceeded up the Rhine
to Gorcum. The banks were flat and tame, and nothing could be less
impressive of its native majesty than this part of the course of the
great river.

"I never felt before," whispered Gertrude, tenderly, "how much there
was of consolation in your presence; for here I am at last on the
Rhine,--the blue Rhine, and how disappointed I should be if you were not
by my side!"

"But, my Gertrude, you must wait till we have passed Cologne, before the
_glories_ of the Rhine