were greeting for the first time the eternal Thalassa which was to become
so dear and familiar to me.

My grandmother, I learned, passed away scarcely a year after the death of
her faithful companion, at the home of her son, a lawyer in The Hague.

Two incidents of the journey back are vividly impressed on my mind. We
went by steamer up the Rhine, and stopped at Ehrenbreitstein to visit old
Frau Mendelssohn, our guardian's mother, at her estate of Horchheim. The
carriage had been sent for us, and on the drive the spirited horses ran
away and would have dashed into the Rhine had not my brother Martin, at
that time eleven years old, who was sitting on the box by the coachman,
saved us.

The other incident is of a less serious nature. I had seen many a salmon
in the kitchen, and resolved to fish for one from the steamer; so I tied
a bit of candy to a string and dropped it from the deck. The fish were
so wanting in taste as to disdain the sweet bait, but my early awakened
love of sport kept me patiently a long time in the same spot, which was
undoubtedly more agreeable to my mother than the bait was to the salmon.
As, protected by the guards, and probably watched by the governess and my
brothers and sisters, I devoted myself to this amusement, my mother went
down into the cabin to rest. Suddenly there was a loud uproar on the
ship. People shouted and screamed, everybody rushed on deck and looked
into the river. Whether I, too, heard the fall and saw the life-boat
manned I don't remember; but I recollect all the more clearly my mother's
rushing frantically from the cabin and clasping me tenderly to her heart
as her rescued child. So the drama ended happily, but there had been a
terrible scene.