After breakfast there came more sight-seeing, Sir Vernon having decided upon going on to Berne by a late afternoon train. So they all set out together in a roomy landau to explore the town and neighbourhood. They went into the arsenal, where a funny old man in a blue blouse showed them ancient and modern gunnery. They saw the venerable lime-tree which stands in front of the Town Hall and the Rathhaus, propped up with wood and stone; a tree which, according to tradition, was originally a twig borne by a young native of Fribourg when he arrived in the town, breathless from loss of blood, to bring the news of the victory of Morat. ‘Victory!’ he gasped, and died. Gerald, more than usually cynical this morning, declined to believe in either the twig or the heroic messenger. ‘I always shut my mind against all these romantic stories upon principle,’ he said languidly. ‘The outcome of all modern research—Mr. Brewer, and all the rest of it—is to prove that none of these delightful traditions has a germ of truth in it. It saves a great deal of trouble to begin by disbelieving them.’ They went about the town in rather a dawdling desultory way, looking at the fronts of old houses, at the queer little shops, and finally paused before the church of St. Nicholas, which they had seen so dimly last night. Edgar insisted upon going in, but Daphne would go no farther than the doorway, where she looked respectfully at the bas-reliefs which she was told to admire. ‘I saw quite enough of it last night,’ she said, when Edgar urged her to go in and explore the interior. ‘Why, Daphne, it was too dark for you to see anything.’ ‘All churches are alike,’ she answered impatiently. ‘Please don’t worry.’ Sir Vernon, who happened to be within earshot, looked at his daughter curiously, wondering at this development of modern manners. Could a pearly delicacy of complexion, luminous eyes of that dark gray which is almost violet, and bright gold hair, quite make amends for this utter want of courtesy? But Edgar appeared perfectly content to be so treated; and it was Edgar who was most concerned in the matter. They dawdled away a long morning seeing the town and driving about the somewhat pastoral landscape which surrounds it, lunched late, and started at five o’clock for Berne, where they arrived at the Berner Hof in time for a late dinner. Daphne grumbled a little on the way, protesting against the landscape between Fribourg and Berne as a relapse into English pastoral scenery. ‘What do I want with meadows, and orchards, and cottages?’ she exclaimed. ‘I can see those in England. If it were not for the cows living on the ground-floor, and the fodder being carried up to the roof by those queer slanting covered ways, there wouldn’t be a shade of difference between the houses here and those at home, except that these are ever so much dirtier.’ ‘You ought to have come a few million years ago, when Switzerland was a glacial chaos,’ said Gerald.