Hôtel Beau Site
Interlaken
1st July 1908
My dear Ethel,
I will write to you this time instead of to Father, as I have not yet answered your letter. I have been glad to get good accounts of you all, I suppose now you are again extra busy with visitors. So I shall miss all the open days for the roses this year, I can scarcely realize that they are so advanced, I hope a few nice ones will remain when I get home.
I am wondering how Arthur has got on with his exam, I suppose it is over now, Kathleen seems to have had a very cheerful letter from him lately, so I hope he has got on well.
We had a quiet day here on Sunday, Aunt & I going to the English Church in the morning, we rested or wrote letters in the afternoon as it was very hot & had a walk after dinner. After dejeuner on Monday we took the boat on Lake Brienz, so far as Giessbach, where there are some beautiful falls, we had tea at an hôtel just in front of them & then started to go down in one of the little cable railways, after going a little way however it stuck & we all had to get out as best we could, the floor of the car being about three or four feet from the wooden slope up which we had to climb up to the top again. It was very awkward for poor Aunt Lizzie & rather frightened her & then we had to walk down a winding path through the wood to reach the boat, Mrs Simson & Mr Godden helped her along, but it was rather a long, steep walk for her knees. Yesterday we took the train to Grindelwald & then a carriage on to the Upper Glacier, a lovely drive all up hill. When we got to the hôtel & left the carriage, we had a guide & some alpen stocks & climbed right up to the Glacier, Aunt started a little way, but it was too stiff for her & she preferred to sit on a large boulder & wait for us & look at us through the glasses; it took about half an hour to climb up & was fairly stiff, but I managed all right with the guide’s help & my trusty stick, they certainly are of great use, & we went right into an ice grotto, a passage cut out in the ice, it was very curious & I am glad not to have missed it. Just before we started climbing we saw an avalanche, a large lump of ice detached itself from the glacier & came thundering down into the moraine.
I am sorry Alice’s holiday has to begin before I get back & hope you will be able to get Edith Knight when you want her. Tell Alice I hope she will enjoy her holiday as much as I have mine. I must enclose a few lines for Judy.
Much love to you all from
Your loving mother
Eugénie N Sladden
