was empty...

I let Jonah, who was leading, get well away, and then gave the car her
head.

Well as we knew it, our way seemed unfamiliar.

We saw the countryside as through a glass darkly. A shadowy file of
poplars, a grey promise of meadowland, a sable thicket, far in the
distance a great blurred mass rearing a sombre head, a chain of silent
villages seemingly twined about our road, and once in a long while the
broad, brave flash of laughing water--these and their ghostly like made
up our changing neighbourhood. Then came a link in the chain that even
Wizard Night could not transfigure--sweet, storied Coarraze, fencing
our way with its peculiar pride of church and state; three miles ahead,
hoary Betharram, defender of the faith, lent us its famous bridge--at
the toll of a break-neck turn, of which no manner of moonshine can
cheat the memory.

We were nearing Lourdes now, but there was no sign of Jonah. I began
to wonder whether my cousin was faring farther afield....

It was so.

Lourdes is a gate-house of the Pyrenees; it was clear that my sister
and cousins had threaded its echoing porch. Their way was good enough
for us. We swung to the right, dived into and out of the sleeping
town, and flung up the pale, thin road that heads for Spain....

It was when we had slipped through Argeles, and Jonah was still before
us, that we knew that if we would catch him we must climb to Gavarnie.

The daylight was waxing now, and when we came to Pierrefitte I switched
off the lights.

There is a gorge in the mountains some seven miles long. It is, I
think, Nature's boudoir. Its tall, steep walls are hung with
foliage--a trembling, precious arras, which spring will so emblazon
with her spruce heraldry that every blowing rod breathes a refreshing
madrigal. Its floor is a busy torrent--fretting its everlasting way by
wet, grey rocks, the vivid green of ferns, and now and again a little
patch of greensward--a tender lawn for baby elves to play on. Here is
a green shelf, ladies, stuck all with cowslips; and there,
another--radiant with peering daffodils. In this recess sweet violets
grow. Look at that royal gallery; it is fraught with crocuses--laden
with purple and gold. Gentians and buttercups, too, have their own
nurseries. But one thing more--this gorge is full of fountains. They
are its especial glory. All the beauty in the world of falling water
is here exhibited. Tremendous falls go thundering: long,