‘And one’s own china-closet, and one’s own linen-presses,’ added Daphne, laughing; ‘and one’s own jams and pickles and raspberry vinegar. Are not those things numbered among the delights of Hawksyard? But I mean you to take me to the Amazon, and when we have thoroughly done the Andes, we’ll go over the Isthmus of Panama, and across Mexico, and finish up with the Rockies. They are only a continuation of the same range, don’t you know, the backbone of the two Americas.’ Edgar laughed as at an agreeable joke. ‘But I mean it,’ protested Daphne, with her elbow resting on the ledge of the window, and her eyes devouring the Jungfrau. ‘We are going to be a second Mr. and Mrs. Brassey in the way of travelling.’ Mr. Turchill looked somewhat uncomfortable, moved by the thought of a hunting-stable running to seed, at home, while he, a wretched sailor at the best of times, lay tossing in some southern archipelago, all among dusky islanders, and reduced to a fishy and vegetable diet. If Daphne were in earnest the sacrifice would have to be made. Upon that point he was certain. Never could he resist that capricious creature; never could he deny her a pleasure, or beat down her airy whims with the sledge-hammer of common sense. ‘I believe we shall be one of the most foolish couples in Christendom,’ he said aloud; ‘but I think we shall be one of the happiest.’ ‘A girl must be very hard-hearted who could not be happy with you, Edgar,’ said Madoline, looking at him with a frank sisterly smile. ‘You are so thoroughly good and kind.’ ‘Ah, but goodness and kindness don’t always score, you know,’ he replied, with a laugh in which there was just a shade of sadness. CHAPTER XXVIII. ‘LOVE IS NOT OLD, AS WHAN THAT IT IS NEW.’ Sir Vernon’s party had sailed over the smiling waters of Thun, with its villa-dotted shores, and its low amphitheatre of pastoral hills which form the foreground to the sublimer mountain-land. They and all their belongings had been carried into Interlaken by the funny little railway across the Bodelei, that fertile garden-ground between two lakes, which has such an obvious air of having begun life under water. They had seen the long rank of prosperous-looking omnibuses waiting for travellers, and in one of those vehicles they had been carried away from the walnut-tree boulevard, and all the gaiety and fashion of Interlaken, to a rustic road ascending the hill towards the pine-woods, and the mountain peaks far away beyond them, piled up against the sky.