"Ma foi!" exclaimed Monsieur, "is it not a detestable arrangement, thus cutting off les plus beaux jours de la vie-Il est si doux pour un homme sensible de se croire aimé une fois au moins! But you must not think all marriages are conducted so, sans amour. Nono-every rule has its exceptions." And again his eye stole over to the opposite side of the deck.

We were now approaching Mayence. Madame began to get fidgety, and to look anxiously towards her carriage. Doubtless she was thinking of her caps and bonnets, and calculating the chances of their being tumbled in getting the vehicle on shore. Her watchful spouse, whose glances generally took a little reconnoitring voyage towards her every ten minutes, to see how she was getting on, flew to her side. In a few moments he returned, and we exchanged various good wishes and a most affectionate farewell.

CHAPTER VIII.

Mayence The Cathedral-Market-Place-Scriptural

Paintings.

ALL now was bustle on board the little vessel, every one hurrying on shore to secure accommodations at the various hotels, and indeed it was necessary to be " sharp" in order to effect this.

W

1

left us on board, and ran on before to the hotel. After two or three attempts, he at last succeeded with much difficulty in procuring a bed-room, and a large salon, at the end of which they promised to put up a bed. It was most fortunate he was able to manage this, for dear G- was quite overcome with fatigue and indisposition, and in her suffering state it was very desirable to get housed somewhere without delay.

A tall, thin, good-natured looking, pale-faced waiter, with a long crane-like neck, showed us up stairs with a thousand apologies. He filled that important office in a German hotel, "oberkellner," or head-waiter, and during the ascent a dozen people came to him, pressing their claims from every quarter. No sooner had he stretched out his anxious face in one direction, and began to exert his energies to contrive how he might satisfy the applicant, than another seized him from a fresh side, and then came new requests increasing in urgency, until the poor man, between his wish to oblige every one, and the impossibility of doing so, looked the very picture of distress and perplexity.

The town seemed literally overflowing with travellers. As we sat at the window of the salon, we saw carriage after carriage loaded with imperials, and covered with dust, drive up to the door. The orange and blue postilion had hardly pulled up his reins, when out of the hotel darted the pale-faced waiter, and in his anxiety to save the travellers the trouble of getting out, poked his long neck into the carriage as far as it would reach, looking so sorry, and so concerned, and so miserable at not be

ing able to receive them, that it was quite distressing to see him.

We could hardly help congratulating ourselves at being so well off, when we saw the tired, hot, dusty, disappointed looking faces. that were sent away from the door. The poor horses too, it was a grievous take-in upon them. From the way German horses are harnessed, the leaders being always yards distant from the wheelers, the former had turned down the porte cochère, and were some paces on the road to the stables, while the carriage was still at the inn door. There they stood, poor, patient things, with their heads down, thinking all their troubles were over, expecting every moment to be unharnessed, and never of course calculating on the chances of the Hotel d' Hollande being full. It quite grieved me to see them rudely roused from this agreeable state of inaction, and their poor heads turned again towards the weary, dusty road.

Everything went on very well until bed-time, when, lo! on examining the door of the salon which had been contrived " a double debt to pay," the key was found missing. A vigorous search was commenced,-divers waiters and

kammermädchen consulted, but to no purpose. At length, the long neck, with the pale face at the end of it, appeared at the door, and hope revived. If any one could procure the indispensable key, it was he, and to go to bed without it was impossible!

There was a long pause, suspense and sleepiness were contending for pre-eminence when our pale-faced friend appeared,—and— there was a key in his hand! He applied it to the door, and the lock sprang out as fast as a foreign lock could spring.

"Ah! that will do famously," said he, "the key does not belong to the door, so I must take it with me after it is locked-I shall want it for the other rooms to-morrow-but I can fasten this now-that is simple enough."

Here was a fresh dilemma! To go to sleep locked up in a room, with the key in the waiter's pocket, would not have been exactly practicable, however simple it appeared in the eyes of our civil friend.

However, he must have been a poor physiognomist who could have anticipated any very obstinate opposition on the part of the pale-faced waiter. There was a nervous anx