On the morning of a farewell we fluctuate sharply between the very distant and the close and homely:  and even in memory the fluctuation occurs, the grander scene casting us back on the modestly nestling, and that, when it has refreshed us, conjuring imagination to embrace the splendour and wonder.  But the wrench of an immediate division from what we love makes the things within us reach the dearest, we put out our hands for them, as violently-parted lovers do, though the soul in days to come would know a craving, and imagination flap a leaden wing, if we had not looked beyond them.

‘Shall we go down?’ said Carinthia, for she knew a little cascade near the house, showering on rock and fern, and longed to have it round her.

They descended, Chillon saying that they would soon have the mists rising, and must not delay to start on their journey.

The armies of the young sunrise in mountain-lands neighbouring the plains, vast shadows, were marching over woods and meads, black against the edge of golden; and great heights were cut with them, and bounding waters took the leap in a silvery radiance to gloom; the bright and dark-banded valleys were like night and morning taking hands down the sweep of their rivers.  Immense was the range of vision scudding the peaks and over the illimitable Eastward plains flat to the very East and sources of the sun.

Carinthia said:  ‘When I marry I shall come here to live and die.’

Her brother glanced at her.  He was fond of her, and personally he liked her face; but such a confident anticipation of marriage on the part of a portionless girl set him thinking of the character of her charms and the attraction they would present to the world of men.  They were expressive enough; at times he had thought them marvellous in their clear cut of the animating mind.—­No one could fancy her handsome; and just now her hair was in some disorder, a night without sleep had an effect on her complexion.

‘It’s not usually the wife who decides where to live,’ said he.

Her ideas were anywhere but with the dream of a husband.  ’Could we stay on another day?—­’

’My dear girl!  Another night on that crazy stool!  ’Besides, Mariandl is bound to go to-day to her new place, and who’s to cook for us?  Do you propose fasting as well as watching?’

‘Could I cook?’ she asked him humbly.

’No, you couldn’t; not for a starving regiment!  Your accomplishments are of a different sort.  No, it’s better to get over the pain at once, if we can’t escape it.

‘That I think too,’ said she, ’and we should have to buy provisions.  Then, brother, instantly after breakfast.  Only, let us walk it.  I know the whole way, and it is not more than a two days’ walk for you and me.  Consent.  Driving would be like going gladly.  I could never bear to remember that I was driven away.

And walking will save money; we are not rich, you tell me, brother.’