ll of blossoms
and sweet sounds, and Eric felt all that intoxication which the
Rhine-life brings over the spirit,--that exhilaration of every faculty,
which comes no one knows whence, as no one can say what gives to the
wine of these mountains its flavor and its life. It is the breath of
the stream; it is the fragrance of the mountains; it is the virtue of
the soil; it is the sunlight that glows in man as in the wine, and
excites an ethereal gladness which no one can be free from, and which
no one can explain.

Eric was often spoken to, but he held himself aloof from all
companionship, wishing in the movement around him to be alone with the
delightful landscape. There are words which become poles of thought in
the meditation of the lonely. Eric heard one fellow traveller say to
another,

"I prefer to go up the river, for one can look at everything longer and
more closely, and it is a triumph of the human mind that we can make
headway against the current."

Against the current! That was the word which that day stuck fast to
Eric out of the thousand things he thought of and looked upon. Against
the stream! That was also his life-course. He had left the trodden
highway, and with bold self-determination he had marked out a path of
his own. It is well, for one there learns more perfectly the world
about him, and, above all, learns his own strength.

"Against the current!" said he, smiling to himself. "Let us see what
will come of it." It was high noon when he disembarked at a little
mediaeval city.

A young man standing on the shore looked sharply at him, exclaiming,
"Dournay!" "Herr von Pranken!" answered Eric. They grasped each other's
hands.

CHAPTER III.

DRINKING NEW WINE.

"Before people have fairly done shaking hands, they say, 'Let us
drink.' It must be the river there that makes you long so to quench
your thirst."

So spoke Eric to the tall, fair youth of his own age, sitting opposite,
who had placed his nicely gloved hand upon a brown spaniel whose head
lay in his lap. The dog frequently looked up to Eric, whose deep,
musical voice perhaps produced an impression upon the creature.

"Here is the list of wines. What year and what vintage do you prefer?
Shall we take new wine, still lively and fermenting?" "Yes, new wine,
and from the mountain here upon which the sun lies so cheerily, and
where the cuckoo calls from the wood;--wine native t