"Yet those snows are sacred to me, Ellen. Do you forget that it was on the snows our love was born: may it resemble them in purity, and not, like them, fade away in summer's sunshine." "It will not fade,--it cannot; and oh! how shall I ever pay the debt of gratitude to dear Lady Arranmore? I love her as a sister; it was owing to her that all this happiness was mine." "She deserves your love, Ellen; and I hope you will shortly see her again. Edith and the Marquis join us at the Towers on the day after to-morrow; we have quite a gay assembly there; and I was almost forgetting my chief object in calling here to-day,--which was to ask you all out next week to join our party. I shall take no refusal, Ellen; so tell that to your father when you give him this note," said the Earl, handing her an invitation. "How kind of you! the country must be looking so pretty now,--the Towers must be in all their beauty." "They are. After all, no place like home,--when the weather is as propitious as it has been this season,--an important item in this climate. I hear you had charming weather for your tour, and enjoyed it much." "Oh, lovely! I do not think I saw a cloud hardly the whole time. The Alps were splendid, and we toured the whole of the Oberland; but Leman, blue Lake Leman, is my pet! I shall always look back on the days spent there as the happiest in my life yet; for it was there I met your sister, and there----" Ellen paused, but the Earl finished her sentence-- "There you found I was still true,--is not that it?" Ellen blushed assent. "It is curious," she continued: "at first I preferred the desolate grandeur of the Alps,--the brawling torrents, rent rocks, and giant pines; but now I seem to love rather the still lake, the river, the woodland, and plain." "I fancy, Ellen, we always like the scenery that corresponds with our prevailing tone of mind. When we are misanthropic and gloomy, we love the dark woods, the gloomy gaps of rivers, the naked rock, and cold avalanche; but when we are happy we turn to sunny plains, and the bright greenwood,--a double reason why you should bend your steps to the Towers, where all is haymaking, sunshine, and merriment; at least if you are now in a happy state of mind." "Be sure I shall only be too glad to look on the rustic scenery of the Towers," said Ellen. "And now tell me, Ellen, all about your travels; I shall be able to enter into it all the better as I know every inch of ground in Switzerland. You know the Captain, Frank, and I only toured it last year. Which did you think the most grand scenery?" "I think almost the wildest was on the road to Hospenthal; night overtook us as we were near Pont du Diable. I shall never forget the terrific grandeur of that dark torrent as it thundered below." "Nor I either," said Lord Wentworth; "for it was on that very road that a most ridiculous _contretemps_ occurred." "Do let me hear it," said Ellen. "I shall have all the more interest from knowing the ground."