There were Cara’s familiar frocks hanging on familiar hooks; her silver-backed hair-brushes (a birthday gift) on the dressing-table; a hat with the pins still sticking in it, as it had been cast down, lay on the bed. There was a little writing-table and blotter--both spattered with ink--and peeping in at the window that hoary old pear tree--the accomplice of the girl in her midnight flights. “_Ach ye!_” exclaimed Frau Hurter in a lachrymose key, “there is the blouse you made her; the skirt you embroidered, the little slippers.--Freda and I will pack everything, and send them down by Jost.” “No, no; I could not bear to see them again,” protested Letty, making an effort to choke back her tears. “Please _keep_ all, except the books and writing materials, and personal treasures,” gathering them together in feverish haste. “Here are dozens and dozens of letters,” announced Frau Hurter, who was diving into a deep drawer. “What of them, _meine Frau_?” “Let them go too.” “To England! Why not burn them?” “No, no, we will stuff them into this silk work-bag, and tie them securely--let the child have all she _values_. I will send a maid to-morrow to pack, and forward everything to London.” After a pause, and a last look round, she added, “I have been very, very happy here, dear Frau, and I love your country--but I am leaving it in a few days,--never to return.” The two women clasped hands, and Frau Hurter, the stony-faced, suddenly drew her fellow-sufferer into her bony embrace, and kissed her with a sort of dry and concentrated passion. As Letty walked down the hill that lovely September evening, she halted for a farewell look at the gleaming lake and range of mountains--a scene beloved and familiar as the face of a dear friend. How many hundred times had she climbed this well-worn path--since the day she had first carried Cara to the farm! Here on this very spot, the little plateau under the pear trees, had Cara thrown her arms about her, assuring her with warm kisses that “she would never, never, _never_ leave her own darling Mum!” As a pair of sad eyes, rested on the matchless prospect, the sun was setting behind Pilatus,--who stood forth grim and rugged, against a flaming background of red and gold--a glorious afterglow spread itself over the slopes of the Rigi, changing its strata of granite to rose-colour, the intervening pastures to a cloudy blue. Then very gradually, as if by the touch of a magic wand, a delicate ethereal haze dissolved the entire scene into an exquisite shade of amethyst,--the curtain had fallen, and a glorious September day, was numbered with the past. The air was still: the sleepy tinkling of a little stream, a far-away hoot of some steamer approaching a landing-stage, the faint sound of a chapel bell were the only sounds that broke a curiously reverent, and impressive silence.