The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, vol 2 | Page 2

came to the far-famed valley of Meyringen, which had been much cried up to us; but, whether from the usual perverseness of human nature, or from being spoiled by the luxury of cascades, valleys, and Alps we had previously seen, we were disappointed in it, though, to do it justice, it has nine cascades.
We slept at a wooden inn, and rose at three; and, before four, mounted on our horses, set off for the Brunig; and after having gone up La Flegère at Chamouni, the crossing the Brunig was a small consideration. Brava! brava!
But--something happened to me and my horse; the result being that I went up the Brunig and down the Brunig on my two legs instead of on the horse's four, and was not the least tired with my three hours' scramble up and scramble down. At the little town of Sarnen we ate eggs and drank sour wine, and Mr. Moilliet, Fanny, and Harriet remounted their horses; Mrs. Moilliet, Emily, Susan, and I went in a _char-à-banc_ of a different construction; not sitting sideways, but on two phaeton seats, one behind the other, facing the horses. Such jolting, such trimming from side to side; but we were not overturned, and got out at the town of Stanzstadt, where, after seeing in the dirtiest inn's dirtiest room a girl with a tremendous black eye, besides the two with which nature had favoured her, we took boat again about sunset, and had a two hours' delicious rowing across the lake of Lucerne, which I prefer to every other I have seen--the moon full and placid on the waters, the stars bright in the deep blue sky, the town of Lucerne shadowed before us with lights here and there in the windows. The air became still, and the sky suddenly clouded over; thunder was heard; bright flashes of lightning darted from behind the mountains and across the town, making it at intervals distinctly visible for a moment. It was dark when we landed, and we had to pass through two or three streets, servants, guides, bag, and baggage, groping our way; and oh, wretched mortals, went to the wrong place, and before we could reach the right one, down poured a waterspout of a shower on our devoted heads and backs. In five minutes, running as hard as we could, we were wet through; and Fanny, in crossing the street and plucking at the guide's bundle for a cloak for me, was nearly run over, but stood it; and, all dripping, we reached our inn, Le Cheval Blanc. An hour spent in throwing off wet clothes and putting on dry--tea, coffee--bed--bugs, and sleep, nevertheless.
We rejoined our landau and _calèche_ at Lucerne, and proceeded in them to Zug, where there is a famous convent or Frauenkloster, which escaped being destroyed during the Revolution, because the abbess and nuns established a school for the female children of the neighbourhood, where they still continue to teach them to read and work: Madame Gautier had desired us to go and see it, and to it we walked: rang at the bell, were told that the nuns were all in the refectory, and were asked to wait. The nuns' repast was soon finished, and one came with a very agreeable, open countenance and fresh, brown complexion, well fed and happy-looking, becomingly dressed in snow-white hood and pelerine and brown gown. Bowing courteously, she by signs--for she could speak neither French nor English--invited us to follow her, and led us through cloister and passage to the room of the boarders; not nuns, only there for their education. A pretty Italian girl, with corkscrew ringlets of dark hair, rose from her pianoforte to receive us, and spoke with much grace and self-complacency Italian-French, and accompanied by way of interpreter our own conductress, who motioned us to the sitting-room, where nuns and pensioners were embroidering, with silk, cotton, chenille, and beads, various pretty, ugly, and fantastical, useless things. Luckily, none were finished at that moment, and their empty basket saved our purses and our taste from danger or disgrace.
I had spied in the corner of the Italian interpreter's apartment a daub of a print of the King and Queen of France taking leave of their family, with a German inscription; and thinking the Abbé Edgeworth had a good right to be in it, and as a kind of German notion of an Abbé appeared in the print, and something like Edgewatz in the German words, I put my finger on the spot, and bade the interpreter tell the nuns and the abbess, who now appeared, that we were nearly related to the Abbé Edgeworth, Louis XVI.'s confessor. This with some difficulty was put into the Italian's head, and through her into the nuns', and through them, in German,