"Well, how are the mountains using you, now?" he called
out to his niece.
"Oh, I could shake them!" she declared. "Listen to this:
'A view of singular beauty, embracing the greater part
of the Lake of Geneva, and the surrounding mountains,
is suddenly disclosed.' That's where we are now--or
were a minute ago. You can see that there is some sort
of valley in front of us--but that is all. If I could
only see one mountain with snow on it----"
"Why, it's all mountains and all snow, when you come
to that," Thorpe insisted, with jocose perversity.
"You're on mountains yourself, all the time."
"You know what I mean," she retorted. "I want to see
something like the coloured pictures in the hotels."
"Oh, probably it will be bright sunlight tomorrow,"
he said, for perhaps the twentieth time that day.
"There--that looks like water!" said Alfred.
"See? just beyond the village. Yes, it is water.
There's your Lake of Geneva, at all events."
"But it isn't the right colour," protested Julia,
peering through the glass. "It's precisely like everything
else: it's of no colour at all. And they always paint it
such a lovely blue! Really, uncle, the Swiss Government
ought to return you your money."
"You wait till you see it tomorrow--or next day,"
said the uncle, vaguely. He closed his eyes, and welcomed
a drowsy mood.
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