It may have been droll to them; it was a most serious matter to us. It was Saturday afternoon, and each one felt and acted upon the realized necessity of outstripping his neighbor, in order to secure rooms. Finally the gentlemen hastened on, our ambition failing with our strength, and we were happy in finding comfortable quarters awaiting us when we had gained the hotel at last. It was the most delightful little nook imaginable when we were rested and refreshed. Until then it possessed no charms in our eyes. It is a little valley, high above the lake, towards which it opens, but shut in on three sides by precipitous hills. Down the face of one the cascades fall. Back against another the hotel is built, facing the lake; its _dépendance_, and the inevitable shops for the sale of Swiss wood-carving and crystals, being ranged along the third side. The whole place is not larger than a flower-garden of moderate size. We were served at our meals by pretty, red-cheeked girls, in charming Swiss costumes; and when we had been out after dark to see the falls illuminated in different colors, while the rustic bridges, which span the cascades at various heights, were crossed by these picturesque figures, I felt as if we were all part of a travelling show, for whom this dear little level spot was the stage, and that a vast audience waited outside, where the walls of hills opened upon the lake, for the curtain to fall. It was like the Happy Valley of Rasselas, which we left with regret when the peaceful Sabbath was over. Across the lake, at Brienz, Monday morning, a carriage waited to bear us on, over the Brunig Pass, into the clouds and out again; then down, down, past village, and lake, and towering hills, resting again at Sarnen, then on to Lucerne, into which we swept, with tinkling bells and cracking whip, to find the city gay with streaming flags and flowery arches, erected for some singing _fête_, but which to us were all signs of a happy welcoming. CHAPTER XVI. BACK TO PARIS ALONE. Coming home.--The breaking up of the party.--We start for Paris alone.--Basle, and a search for a hotel.--The twilight ride.--The shopkeeper whose wits had gone "a wool-gathering."--"Two tickets for Paris."--What can be the matter now?--'Michel Angelo's Moses.--Paris at midnight.--The kind _commissionaire_.--The good French gentleman, and his fussy little wife.--A search for Miss H.'s.--"Come up, come up."--"Can women travel through Europe alone?"--A word about a woman's outfit.