‘I don’t know that there is anything in Switzerland that impresses one so much as one’s first view of the Jura,’ said Gerald. ‘It is the giant gateway of mountain-land—the entrance into a new world.’ The heat seemed to increase rather than diminish with the shades of evening. No cool breeze sprang up with the going down of the sun. The sultry atmosphere thickened, and became almost stifling; and then, just as it was growing dark, big raindrops came splashing down, a roar of thunder rolled along the hills, like a volley of cannon; thin threads of vivid light trembled and zigzagged behind the hill-tops, and the storm which had been brooding over them all the afternoon broke in real earnest. ‘A thunderstorm in the Jura,’ exclaimed Gerald; ‘what a lucky young woman you are, Mistress Daphne! Here is one of Nature’s grandest effects got up as if on purpose to give you pleasure.’ ‘I hope it may cool the air,’ said Sir Vernon, from the comfortable corner where he had been fitfully slumbering ever since they left the French territory. Daphne sat looking out of the window, and spoke never a word. She was drinking in the beauty and grandeur of this unspeakable region, trying to fill her soul with the form and manner of it. Yes, it was worth while living, were it only to see these mountain peaks and gorges; these hurrying waters and leaping torrents; these living forces of everlasting Nature. She had been weary of her life very often of late, so weary that she would gladly have flung it off her like a worn-out garment, and have lain down in dull contentment to take her last earthly rest; but to-night she was glad to be alive—to see the forked lightnings dancing upon the mountain-sides; to hear all earth shudder at the roar of the thunder; to feel herself a part of that grand conflict. A little later, when they had gone through an almost endless tunnel, and were nearing Geneva, the thunder grew more and more distant, seemed to travel slowly away, like an enemy’s cannon firing stray shots as the foe retreated; and the night sky flung off its black cloud-mantle, and all the stars shone out of a calm purple heaven; while the little lights of the city, faint yellow spots upon the dark blue night, trembled and quivered in the distance. ‘Isn’t this dreadfully like one’s idea of Manchester?’ said Daphne, when they were in the station, and tickets were being collected in the usual businesslike way. ‘Can there be a higher model than Manchester for any commercial city?’ asked Gerald. ‘Commercial! Oh, I hope there is nothing commercial in Switzerland. I have always thought of it as a land of mountains and lakes.’ ‘So is Scotland, yet there is such an element as trade in that country.’