es! what
unceasing regrets! what pinings after the past! what long and beautiful
years devoted to a moral grave, by a momentary rashness, an impulse, a
disappointment! But in these churches the lesson is more impressive and
less sad. The weary heart has ceased to ache; the burning pulses are
still; the troubled spirit has flown to the only rest which is not a
deceit. Power and love, hope and fear, avarice, ambition,--they are
quenched at last! Death is the only monastery, the tomb is the only
cell."

"Your passion is ever for active life," said Gertrude. "You allow no
charm to solitude, and contemplation to you seems torture. If any great
sorrow ever come upon you, you will never retire to seclusion as its
balm. You will plunge into the world, and lose your individual existence
in the universal rush of life."

"Ah, talk not of sorrow!" said Trevylyan, wildly. "Let us enter the
church."

They went afterwards to the celebrated cathedral, which is considered
one of the noblest of the architectural triumphs of Germany; but it is
yet more worthy of notice from the Pilgrim of Romance than the searcher
after antiquity, for here, behind the grand altar, is the Tomb of the
Three Kings of Cologne,--the three worshippers whom tradition humbled to
our Saviour. Legend is rife with a thousand tales of the relics of this
tomb. The Three Kings of Cologne are the tutelary names of that golden
superstition which has often more votaries than the religion itself from
which it springs and to Gertrude the simple story of Lucille sufficed
to make her for the moment credulous of the sanctity of the spot. Behind
the tomb three Gothic windows cast their "dim, religious light" over the
tessellated pavement and along the Ionic pillars. They found some of
the more credulous believers in the authenticity of the relics kneeling
before the tomb, and they arrested their steps, fearful to disturb the
superstition which is never without something of sanctity when contented
with prayer and forgetful of persecution. The bones of the Magi are
still supposed to consecrate the tomb, and on the higher part of
the monument the artist has delineated their adoration to the infant
Saviour.

That evening came on with a still and tranquil beauty, and as the sun
hastened to its close they launched their boat for an hour or two's
excursion upon the Rhine. Gertrude was in that happy mood when the quiet
of nature is enjoyed like a bath for the soul, and the presenc