This
is a castle restored."

"What do you mean by that?" said Rollo.

"Why, nearly all the old castles on the Rhine," replied Mr. George,
"have been abandoned, and have gone to decay; or else, if they have been
repaired or rebuilt, they have been finished and furnished in the
fashion of modern times. But this castle of Rheinstein, which we are now
going to see, has been restored, as nearly as possible, to its ancient
condition. The rooms, and the courts, and the towers, and battlements
are all arranged as they used to be in former ages; and the furniture
contained within is of the ancient fashion. The chairs, and tables, and
cabinets, and all the other articles, are such as the barons used when
the castles on the Rhine were inhabited."

"Where do they get such things nowadays?" asked Rollo.

"Some of the furniture which they have in this castle," said Mr. George,
"originally belonged there, and has been kept there all the time, for
hundreds of years. When they repaired and rebuilt the castle, they
repaired this furniture too, and put it in perfect order. Some other
furniture they bought from other old castles which the owners did not
intend to repair, and some they had made new, after the ancient
patterns. But here we are, close under the castle."

A few minutes after this, the carriage stopped in the road at the
entrance to a broad, gravelled pathway, which diverged from the road
directly under the castle walls, and began to ascend at once through the
woods in zigzags. Mr. George and his party got out, and began to go up.
The carriage, in the mean time, went on a few steps farther, to a smooth
and level place by the roadside, under the shade of some trees, there to
await the return of the party from their visit to the castle above.

"Now, children," said Mr. George, "we will see how you can stand hard
climbing."

Rollo and Minnie looked up, and they could see the walls and battlements
of the castle, resting upon and crowning the crags and precipices of the
rock, far above their heads.

The road, or rather the pathway,--for it was not wide enough for a
carriage, and was besides too steep, and turned too many sharp corners
for wheels,--was very smooth and hard, and the children ascended it
without any difficulty. They stopped frequently to look up, for at every
turn there was some new view of the walls or battlements, or towers
above, or of the crags and precipices of the rock on which the various
constructions