, Cyril," said Eva, pointing to a gorgeous
peacock-butterfly which had settled amicably by a bee on the
pink-and-downy coronet of a great thistle.

"Oh, I don't want that; one can get it any day in England; here though,
look at this lovely burnet-moth," he cried, as the blue-and-red-winged
little creature settled on the same thistle-head.

"What a shame to disturb that beautiful Psyche," said Julian, as Cyril
dashed his cap over the prey, and the peacock fluttered off; "it was
enjoying itself so intensely in the sunshine, opening and shutting its
wings in unmitigated contentment." But Cyril had secured his moth
without heeding the remark, and was now twenty yards ahead.

A sudden roar of sound stopped him, and he waited to ask the rest, "if
they had heard the thunder?"

"It wasn't thunder, but the rush of an avalanche," said Kennedy; "there,
you may see it still on the side of the Jungfrau."

"What, those little white streaks, which look like a mountain torrent?"

"Yes."

"And can those threads of snow make all that row?"

"You must remember that the threads of snow are five miles off, and are
perhaps thousands of tons in weight."

By this time they had reached the part of the mountain where the climb
became really toilsome, and they settled down into the steady pace,
which the Swiss guides always adopt because they know that it is the
quickest in the long run. And at this point Mr Kennedy and Mrs Dudley
left them, preferring, like sensible old people, to stroll back in
quiet, and avoid an exertion which they found too fatiguing. They knew
that they could safely entrust the party to the care of Julian and the
guide. The ladies often needed help, and there seemed to be something
very pleasant to Kennedy in the light touch of Violet's hand, for he
lent her his arm or his alpenstock oftener than was absolutely required.
They only stopped once more to quench their thirst at a streamlet which
was rushing impetuously down the rocks, and a little below them foamed
over the precipice into a white and noisy cataract.

"I never noticed water before falling from such a height," said Julian;
"it looks exactly like a succession of white comets plunging through the
sky in a crowd."

"Or a throng of white-sheeted ghosts hurrying deliriously through the
one too-narrow entrance of the lower world," said Kennedy. "Doesn't it
remind one of Schiller's line--

"`Und es wallet und liedet und brauset und Pikcht?'"

"I adm