The sun had already set, the evening star shone silvery over the west glowing with the lingering daylight; the valleys lay already robed in gloom; the lake shadowed; but the far heights of Mont Blanc still showed sunny peaks, and presented a strange contrast to "darkened Jura." Not a zephyr was awake--not a flaw disturbed the serenity of the waters, broken only by the dip of the oar which, as it touched the dark surface, made the waters flash with a blue light inconceivable to those who have never viewed this lake. The useless sails of the picturesque little craft resembled the wings of a sea-gull, or some other bird, calmly suspended a moment ere closed to rest. Towards the upper end of the lake the Alps descending rise more perpendicularly from the surface, and looked like grim sentinels watching over a fairy fountain. As the lake is crescent-shaped this part was of course hidden; but from behind the slight eminence that sloped down to the right bank, the sails of a similar craft were visible, and from them the clear notes of the silver bugle, mellowed into softness by the distance, rose with an indescribable sweetness, and died away in soft decay along the tranquil waters. There is something peculiarly delicious in music on the waters, and as the strains rose or fell in softest cadence our heroine listened with an earnestness as if it was the minstrelsy of angels. The musician was probably English if we might judge by the song he selected:--"There is no place like Home." Whilst it lasted the very boatmen, as if loath to lose one note, bent over their suspended oars, and the young friends looked at each other but spoke not. At last the dying fall grew fainter and fainter, till it entirely ceased, but was once more taken up and echoed among the vocal hills ere silence again brooded. "Ah, how true that is, Lady Arranmore," said Ellen; "is it not? Beautiful as this land is, it is not home; and whilst our lips may say there is no scene like this in the land of our birth, yet our heart belies our words, and whispers, 'There is no place like home.'" "True, Miss Ravensworth; yet you must remember we are here for our own pleasure, we are not like the exile, or the emigrant, unable to return;--we can hasten back when we please, and find the smiles of friends all the brighter after a slight absence. I fear you are unhappy, and look on the shady instead of the sunny side of life, and bend your eye rather toward yonder dark-browed Jura, than to the sunlit crest of Mont Blanc."