guided them
to the secret dells and unknown points of view; and with a sympathy
unexpected in a stranger, beguiled them out of their grief, and won
their admiration and gratitude. Marie of the Giessbach was often
referred to in letters of the time, and for many years after, with
warmly affectionate remembrances.

A few bits from his letters to his mother, which I have been permitted
to copy, will indicate the impressions of this summer's tour.

"HOTEL DU GIESBACH, _6th June, 1866_,

"MY DEAREST MOTHER,

"Can you at all fancy walking out in the morning in a garden full
of lilacs just in rich bloom, and pink hawthorn in masses; and
along a little terrace with lovely pinks coming into cluster of
colour all over the low wall beside it; and a sloping bank of green
sward from it--and below that, the Giesbach! Fancy having a real
Alpine waterfall in one's garden,--seven hundred feet high. You
see, we are just in time for the spring, here, and the strawberries
are ripening on the rocks. Joan and Constance have been just
scrambling about and gathering them for me. Then there's the
blue-green lake below, and Interlaken and the lake of Thun in the
distance. I think I never saw anything so beautiful. Joan will
write to you about the people, whom she has made great friends
with, already."

"_7th June, 1866_.

"I cannot tell you how much I am struck with the beauty of this
fall: it is different from everything I have ever seen in torrents.
There are so many places where one gets near it without being wet,
for one thing; for the falls are, mostly, not vertical so as to fly
into mere spray, but over broken rock, which crushes the water into
a kind of sugar-candy-like foam, white as snow, yet glittering; and
composed, not of bubbles, but of broken-up water. Then I had
forgotten that it plunged straight into the lake; I got down to the
lake shore on the other side of it yesterday, and to see it plunge
clear into the blue water, with the lovely mossy rocks for its
flank, and for the lake edge, was an unbelievable kind of thing; it
is all as one would fancy cascades in fairyland. I do not often
endure with patience any cockneyisms or showings off at these
lovely places. But they do one thing here so interesting that I can
forgive it. One of the chief cascades (about midway up t