They were approaching the village on the height. The Lauterbrunnen valley was sinking deeper and deeper into remoteness, a mere green cleft in the mountains. They had met and passed many people on their way: ladies being carried down by sturdy natives in a kind of sedan-chair, something of the palki species; voyagers struggling upwards with their belongings, with a view to spending some days in the quiet settlement among the snow-peaks; guides jogging by with somebody else’s luggage; mules laden with provisions. The guides gave each other a grinning good-day as they passed, and exchanged remarks in a _patois_ not very easy to understand; remarks that had a suggestion of being critical, and not altogether commendatory, of the clients at that moment under escort. ‘Here we are, up in the skies at last,’ cried Daphne, as she sprang lightly to the ground, spurning her lover’s proffered aid, and just brushing against the eager arms held out to receive her; ‘and oh how dreadfully far away the top of the Jungfrau still is, and how very dirty she looks now we are on a level with her shoulder!’ ‘It is too late in the year for you to see her in her virginal purity. A good deal of the snow has melted,’ said Madoline apologetically. ‘But it ought not to melt. I thought I was coming to a region of eternal snow. Why, the lower peaks are horribly streaky and brown. Thank Heaven the Silberhorn still looks dazzlingly white. And is this Mürren? A real mountain village? How I wish we were going to live here for a month.’ ‘I fancy you would get horribly tired of it,’ suggested Gerald Goring. She did not stay to argue the point, but ordered Edgar to explore the village with her immediately. The big wooden barrack of an hotel, with its bright green blinds and pine balconies, looked down upon her, the commonplace type of an advanced civilisation. Young men, all affecting a more or less Alpine-Clubbish air, lounged about in various easy attitudes; young women, in every variety of hat and gauze veil, read Tauchnitz novels, or made believe to be sketching, under artistic-looking umbrellas. Daphne made but a cursory survey of this tourist population before she started off upon her voyage of discovery, with Edgar in delighted attendance on her steps. Madoline and Gerald, who both knew all that there was to be known about Mürren, were content to loiter in the garden of the Hôtel des Alpes, dreamily contemplative of the sublimities around and about them. ‘I give you half an hour for your explorations,’ said Gerald, as Daphne and her swain departed; ‘if you are not back by that time, Lina and I will eat all the luncheon. At this elevation luncheon is not a matter to be trifled with. There are limits to the supplies.’