fall; a promenade after
the fashion of a German Spa; and when you lift your eyes from the
ground, jagged summits of Dolomites: it was a combination such as
I had never before beheld; a Rhine town plumped down among green
Alpine heights, and threaded by the cool colonnades of Italy.

I approved Cesarine's choice; and I was particularly glad she
had pronounced for an hotel, where all is plain sailing, instead
of advising a furnished villa, the arrangements for which would
naturally have fallen in large part upon the shoulders of the
wretched secretary. As in any case I have to do three hours' work
a day, I feel that such additions to my normal burden may well
be spared me. I tipped Cesarine half a sovereign, in fact, for
her judicious choice. Cesarine glanced at it on her palm in her
mysterious, curious, half-smiling way, and pocketed it at once with
a "Merci, monsieur!" that had a touch of contempt in it. I always
fancy Cesarine has large ideas of her own on the subject of tipping,
and thinks very small beer of the modest sums a mere secretary can
alone afford to bestow upon her.

The great peculiarity of Meran is the number of schlosses (I believe
my plural is strictly irregular, but very convenient to English
ears) which you can see in every direction from its outskirts. A
statistical eye, it is supposed, can count no fewer than forty of
these picturesque, ramshackled old castles from a point on the
Kuechelberg. For myself, I hate statistics (except as an element in
financial prospectuses), and I really don't know how many ruinous
piles Isabel and Amelia counted under Cesarine's guidance; but I
remember that most of them were quaint and beautiful, and that their
variety of architecture seemed positively bewildering. One would be
square, with funny little turrets stuck out at each angle; while
another would rejoice in a big round keep, and spread on either side
long, ivy-clad walls and delightful bastions. Charles was immensely
taken with them. He loves the picturesque, and has a poet hidden
in that financial soul of his. (Very effectually hidden, though, I
am ready to grant you.) From the moment he came he felt at once
he would love to possess a castle of his own among these romantic
mountains. "Seldon!" he exclaimed contemptuously. "They call Seldon
a castle! But you and I know very well, Sey, it was built in 1860,
with sham antique stones, for Macpherson of Seldon, at market rates,
by Cubitt and Co., worshipful co