442 PRÆTERITA-II

ways, which made her typically an old maid in later years. I imagine that, without the least unkind severity, she was yet much of a Puritan at heart, and one rarely heard, if ever, of her going to a theatre, or a rout, or a cricket-match; yet she was brilliant at a Christmas party, acted any part-that depended on whalebone-admirably, and was extremely witty in a charade. She felt herself sorrowfully turned out of her own house and place when her brother married,¹ and spent most of her summers in travel, with another wise old maid for companion. Then Richard and his wife went to live in Clapham Park; and Eliza stayed, wistfully alone, in her child’s home, for a while. The lease expired, I suppose, and she did not care to renew it. The last time I saw her, she was enjoying some sort of town life in New Bond Street.

Little I thought, in clasping Richard’s hand on the ridge of the Jaman that spring,-he going down into the Simmenthal, I back to Vevay,-that our companying together was ended: but I never have known anything of what was most seriously happening to me till afterwards; this-unastrological readers will please to note-being one of the leaden influences on me of the planet Saturn.

213. My father and mother were waiting for me at Geneva, and we set out, with short delay, for St. Martin’s.

The road from Geneva to Chamouni, passing the extremity of the Salève about five miles south of the city, reaches at that point the sandy plateau of Annemasse, where forms of passport had (anciently) to be transacted, which gave a quarter of an hour for contemplation of what the day had to do.

From the street of the straggling village one saw over the undulations of the nearer, and blue level of the distant,

¹ [Here, again, Ruskin is not quite accurate. The house at Herne Hill was left to Miss Eliza Fall, who continued to reside there for many years after the marriage of her brother. She was a clever copyist, helping Ruskin with various studies from illuminated MSS., etc. Miss Fall was much with Ruskin’s mother, during her later years, and after her death Miss Fall left Herne Hill. She died in 1881, aged sixty.]

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