untry residences, walled in, over the
gates of which the owners have placed suggestive names: "My Rest;"
"Heart's Desire;" "Good Luck;" "Beautiful Situation;" anything which
fancy or individual taste may dictate. Of Lausanne I recall little but
an endless mounting and descending of stairs. The city is built upon a
hill, intersected by ravines, which accounts for this peculiar method of
gaining many streets from others above and below. We made but a hurried
visit. It was market day, and ugly women, old and young, were sitting
upon the sidewalks in the narrow streets, knitting, with the yarn held
over the fore-finger of the left hand, and selling fruits and vegetables
between times. In the honey market the air fairly buzzed and swarmed;
yet still these women knit, and gossiped, and bargained complacently,
unmindful of the bees in their bonnets. From Ouchy we made an excursion
to the head of the lake. It is a short voyage of two hours to
Villeneuve, the last town. Clouds hid the distant mountains; but those
lesser and nearer, upon our right, as we went on, were bare, and broken,
and rocky, contrasting strangely with the gently swelling slopes upon
the other side, covered with vineyards, and with quiet little villages
at their feet. Each of these villages has its romantic association; or,
failing in that, a grand hotel to attract summer visitors. Vevay boasts
the largest hotel, but nothing more. Just beyond Vevay is "Clarens,
sweet Clarens," the willows of which dip into the lake. Here, if
Rousseau and Byron are to be believed, Love was born; possibly in some
one of the mean little houses which border the narrow streets.

Soon after leaving Clarens, the gray, stained tower of Chillon rises
from the water, near enough to the shore to be reached by a bridge. With
the "little isle" and its three tall trees marked by the prisoner as he
paced his lonely cell, ends the romance of the lake. Poets have sung its
beauties, but Lucerne had stolen away our hearts, and we gazed upon the
rocks, and vineyards, and villages, with cold, critical eyes. It was
only later, when the summer twilight fell as we lingered upon the
balcony before our windows at Ouchy that we acknowledged its charm. The
witching sound of music came up from the garden below. Upon the silver
lake before us, the lateen sails, like the white wings of great
sea-birds, gleamed out from the darkness; the tiny wavelets rippled and
plashed softly against the breakwater; and wh