e first aspects of their profession.
There, as elsewhere, they got rid of a few prejudices to which we cling
so fondly in favor of the beauties of our native land. Surprised by the
aspect of the columns of marble which adorn the Electoral Palace, they
went about admiring the grandiose effects of German architecture, and
finding everywhere new treasures both modern and antique.

From time to time the highways along which the two friends rode at
leisure on their way to Andernach, led them over the crest of some
granite hill that was higher than the rest. Thence, through a clearing
of the forest or cleft in the rocky barrier, they caught sudden glimpses
of the Rhine framed in stone or festooned with vigorous vegetation. The
valleys, the forest paths, the trees exhaled that autumnal odor which
induced to reverie; the wooded summits were beginning to gild and
to take on the warm brown tones significant of age; the leaves were
falling, but the skies were still azure and the dry roads lay like
yellow lines along the landscape, just then illuminated by the oblique
rays of the setting sun. At a mile and a half from Andernach the two
friends walked their horses in silence, as if no war were devastating
this beautiful land, while they followed a path made for the goats
across the lofty walls of bluish granite between which foams the Rhine.
Presently they descended by one of the declivities of the gorge, at
the foot of which is placed the little town, seated coquettishly on the
banks of the river and offering a convenient port to mariners.

"Germany is a beautiful country!" cried one of the two young men, who
was named Prosper Magnan, at the moment when he caught sight of the
painted houses of Andernach, pressed together like eggs in a basket,
and separated only by trees, gardens, and flowers. Then he admired for
a moment the pointed roofs with their projecting eaves, the wooden
staircases, the galleries of a thousand peaceful dwellings, and the
vessels swaying to the waves in the port.

[At the moment when Monsieur Hermann uttered the name of Prosper Magnan,
my opposite neighbor seized the decanter, poured out a glass of
water, and emptied it at a draught. This movement having attracted my
attention, I thought I noticed a slight trembling of the hand and a
moisture on the brow of the capitalist.

"What is that man's name?" I asked my neighbor.

"Taillefer," she replied.

"Do you feel ill?" I said to him, observing that this