"Dad is enjoying his holiday," she wrote, "and looks better already. He was rather run down, but he is picking up in this jolly air, and getting very active. He makes me laugh all the time, he is so pleased with everything. I was rather a fool to write to you what I did from Paris. I suppose I was bored at not being at home, and got ideas into my head. But when you told me what that little ass Jimmy said, I didn't worry any more. I knew that I was safe in believing the opposite. Dad is very pleased at Ella's engagement to Sir John Ambleside, as of course he is very fond of her, as she has been almost like one of us to him, and was nice to him when all of us were away. She has been in love with Sir John for months, but couldn't quite make up her mind to marry him when she found out he was Jimmy's cousin. However, that seems to be his only drawback, and when Jimmy grows up he _may_ improve. There's always hope." Grafton's letters were short, but fairly frequent. There was no further mention of Ella in them, but there was a good deal about Barbara. "Barbara is a delightful companion," he wrote, some days after they had gone to Chateau d'Oex. "I've never had her to myself so much before. We never bore one another, and we talk about all things under the sun. She's a dear child, and has developed extraordinarily. There's a lot in that investigating mind of hers, and it's all beginning to come out. It was a good thing to send her to Paris, though I'm glad enough that the time is over, and I shall have her at home now. She says she is going to stay with me for years and years. But I doubt if I shall keep the sort of young woman she's growing into for more than two or three at the outside. However, they will be happy ones, and there's no reason why the happiness should end when she does get married, bless her!" One morning they set out very early to walk to the coombe of the Vanil Noir. Grafton carried a ruecksack with their lunch, and they walked slowly, as they had learnt to do with a long day's expedition before them. The air was deliriously fresh and fragrant, and the sun had not yet become hot. They crossed pasture after pasture deep in flowers, and as they slowly mounted, the great panorama shifted and changed; distant snowpeaks lifted themselves into view, and became new mountain ranges; the windings of their own valley were displayed, and little towns and villages on its green floor looked like scattered children's buildings.