Ida had not long closed her weary eye-lids, before Constantia awoke greatly refreshed. Unconscious of the manner in which her sister had past the night, she lost no time in waking her, and advising the prosecution of their journey. Ida was contented with her short repose, and obeyed the summons. Yet before they quitted the hospitable cavern, to whose shelter from the night-blast they undoubtedly were indebted for life, Ida led her sister to the place, which had appeared to her so awfully splendid when viewed at midnight; but which (she doubted not) would produce a different impression than in those moments, when her fortitude was completely subdued by anxiety of mind and lassitude of body. The beams of the morning-sun now stained the waters of the Aar with crimson light: its streams, as they precipitated themselves into the vales beneath, glowed with a thousand beautiful colours. A shower of diamonds seemed to fall from the summit of the ice-rock, and the clifts, which during the night had thrown such deep and solemn shadows around them, now were gaily arrayed in verdant moss and covered with such hardy plants, as can endure cold without inconvenience, and which generally fasten their roots in the fissures of stones and among the broken crags of mountains. The sight was at once majestic and enlivening! the two pilgrims sank upon their knees opposite to the newly-risen sun, and poured out the sentiments of pious enthusiasm, with which they felt their hearts overflow. Not complaints, not murmurs, not sighs proceeded from the lips of these poor forlorn-ones: no; they exprest their delight at this wonderful creation and their admiration of its Creator, though at that moment they were themselves struggling against calamities so desperate, as scarcely to afford them the remote possibility of a rescue. Never perhaps was a nobler sacrifice offered up by suffering humanity to the power and magnificence of the Supreme! Yet Ida’s sacrifice was the greatest, since Constantia possest a source of satisfaction in her bosom, of which her sister was not yet aware.