Chapter II.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 182, 3 August 1871, Page 7

Chapter 11.

Reader' do you know the town of Bonn ? if you do, there is no need for me to describe it; if you don't, no amount of description would make you. So I proceed with my narrative. De Vere was very sick crossing the Channel ; I'm sure he was, because he kept leaving me on deck to go below, to fetch a plaid, to get a drop of brandy — to see after our things, he said, but I knew better. I took advantage of his absence to look over the side, but I'm sure the fishes did not benefit in the manner De Vere vulgarly said they did. The journey to Cologne was uneventful. The Hotel Disch was bad, but, as De Vece said, the hotel dishes were worse. My exclamation of disgust at a smell we encountered in our peregrinations he also said was a veritable " Oh ! de Cologne," but I pass by such bad jokes as unworthy of my graphic pen. I only record these minutiaß of travel as interesting, from the fact that the time was approaching when But again I anticipate. At Bonn we went to the " Stern," as De Vere insisted on it ; he said (having consulted a dictionary) that there we should at last probaably discover the meaning of the phrase " the twinkling of a bed-post." But I own I. did not see the joke, such as it was, until several dajs afterwards, when I had got hold of the dictionary. I made great play then with Doctor Watts' hymn, but De Vere said it was a stupid joke ; he always said my jokes were stupid. There was an English family at Bonu ; at least, there were a great? many, but there were only one for us. In that one family there were two daughters — one lovely as the day, the other ugly as the— the night isn't particularly ugly — I can never find a simile! The pretty one was Emily, the ugly one was Jane. Jane was the eldest — Jane Gray, as De Vefe called her, she being well-striken in years, and snowy ab.ut the head, and he thinking he knew some history. ' The] parents were very old, and had aboui six teeth between them, How they managed at the table d'hote I cannot i tell, but I suppose the six teeth were real good ones. The family's surname was Moppin — an old name, Jane told us ; its derivation, the fact of there founder using his handkerchief to his face, after having captured seventeen fortified towns from William the Conqueror, one afternocfuin July.

We both fell in love with Emily, or rather slid into it, after meeting her every day for a week at the table d'hote. It was a fearful crisis. I could not stifle the beatings of my heart. I could not loose my friend. What was I to do ?