erg to the watchman of the guard tower, before being allowed to
issue through the gateway. The mountains of the Neckar valley tinged
with a deep blue lay before the youthful wanderer and with charmed gaze
did his eye roam from the nut-trees which lined the road to the green
fore-land of the river, whose emerald waters glistened in thousand
circles, or dashed white crested against the large granite blocks,
which according to the legend a young giant had pitched down from the
Heiligenberg for a wager with his father, who himself had however
hurled them straight across to the so-called Felsenmeer. To the left of
the road beauteous lilacs hung over the garden-wall, or, sweet-smelling
elders in which the finches built their nests were to be seen.

"Since I turned my back on the snows of the Alps," thought the young
artist, "I have never seen any landscape which reminds me more of Italy
than does this valley with its chestnuts and vines. Who would have
expected so much beauty, that gorgeous building opposite, this Neckar
valley at my feet. I am a child of Fortune, therefore am I named
Felice." And he drank in deep draughts of the air laden with the
perfume of the newly-broken up sod and the fragrant rape-fields, borne
to him on the wind. Whilst thus dreaming of the delightful sensation of
being one of the lucky mortals, a division of the road caused him to
remember that he hardly knew whether he would reach his destination by
following this path, and he therefore stopt to await a peasant, who had
stood by his side whilst he gave his name at the Bridge.

"You cannot have heard much about Heidelberg," said the old man, "if
you do not know where the Neuburg lies? Come along with me, you wish to
visit your brother, the Italian parson?"

"How do you know that Magister Laurenzano is my brother?"

"Why he is as like you as two peas, only he is thinner and pale, but a
fine speaker, you must hear him in the pulpit, he is like a dancer on a
tight-rope."

"You have heard him?" asked Felix rather shocked at the comparison.

"That I have," rejoined the old man. "As I went for the first time to
the Court chapel, I saw in the pulpit a tall young man of about six
feet, who raged, wept, wrung his hands, and threw himself from one side
of the pulpit to the other, in a way that quite frightened me. What can
have taken place, I thought to myself 'Oh! what a total depravity of
the human heart!' I heard him call out as I sat down. Have they w