She would rather miss than receive any return you can make, and is always more inclined to set a proper value upon the solid and eternal recompense of God, than attach any importance to the empty and interested gratitude of man." Gilbert's eyes were bent again upon the Lake of Constance.

They were now at the foot of a long, high hill, which they began to ascend in silence.

Gilbert pressed his horse rather swiftly up the gradual ascent, and they soon gained the summit.
"What is the Danube to that splendid lake!" cried the mercurial stripling; "and what is there in all the lordship of Stramen to vie with this!" The view now opened might excuse his excitement, even in a less interested person.

The Castle of Hers, though built for strength, presented a very different appearance from that of Stramen: its outline was light and graceful, and it seemed rather to lift up than cumber the tall hill that it so elegantly crowned.

It was situated upon the border of the lake, which, by trouvere and troubadour, in song and in verse, in every age and in every clime, has been so justly celebrated.