A FEW WEEKS IN SWITZERLAND. 563 



diate family all the time which remained to 

 him before returning to his duties in Cam- 

 bridge. They were very happy weeks, passed, 

 for the most part, in absolute retirement, at 

 Montagny, near the foot of the Jura, where 

 Madame Agassiz was then residing with her 

 daughter. The days were chiefly spent in an 

 old-fashioned garden, where a corner shut in 

 by ivy and shaded by trees made a pleasant 

 out-of-door sitting-room. There he told his 

 mother, as he had never been able to tell her 

 in letters, of his life and home in the United 

 States, and of the Museum to which he was 

 returning, and which was to give him the 

 means of doing for the study of nature all he 

 had ever hoped to accomplish. His quiet stay 

 here was interrupted only by a visit of a few 

 days to his sister at Lausanne, and a trip to 

 the Diablerets, where his brother, then a great 

 invalid, was staying. He also passed a day or 

 two at Geneva, where he was called to a meet- 

 ing of the Helvetic Society, which gave him 

 an opportunity of renewing old ties of friend- 

 ship, as well as scientific relations, with the 

 naturalists of his own country, with Pictet de 

 la Rive, de Candolle, Favre, and others. 



