Barbara and her father left Paris one evening and arrived at Montreux the next morning. In the afternoon they climbed up by the electric train to Chateau d'Oex, where they had spent a happy fortnight five winters before, skating and ski-ing and lugeing. Barbara had been given the choice of a place to go to, and had chosen this. She wanted to see the mountain pastures, which they had known only under snow, in their early summer dress. Grafton did not want to travel about. They were to stay wherever they went to, and perhaps visit a few other places on their homeward way. The next day Barbara wrote to Caroline. "Here we are, in the same old rooms, with the same jolly old view, but you've no idea of the difference. There is still snow on the Gummfluh and the Ruebli, but only in the clefts and hollows, and all the rest is the most lovely pinks and purples and yellows and heavenly green. All the fields are simply full of flowers, growing with the hay. They say that a month ago they were white with narcissus, but they couldn't have been more beautiful than they are now, with all their colours. Dad and I had a walk this morning across the valley to where we used to ski. It was like walking through a garden, and the river looks topping, all free of ice, and flowing between the rocks and firs. The cows are feeding half-way up the Cray, and those that are still down here all have great cow-bells. You hear them booming and tinkling all the time. We are going to have a lot of walks, and go up to the chalets where they make the cheeses. The rink is now a tennis court, but the people who play there don't look very interesting and Dad hasn't brought any things so I don't think we shall launch ourselves among them. There aren't many people in the hotel yet--very different from what it was when we were here. But we like it, and are going to be thoroughly lazy, and loll about with books, except when we go for walks.