At 4 o’clock, after tea, we started back, for the schoolmaster thought the descent would not take more than two hours and a half, but we needed more than three. For we were all very tired, and a great many of them had sore feet, especially Aunt Alma! We had said before, that it would be too much for Aunt; but she had to come with us to take care of Marina, though Marina enjoyed herself _extremely_ with a Herr Furtner, who is studying mining like Oswald, not in Leoben but in Germany. One does not really find out what a girl is like until one sees how she behaves with a man, or what she is like when one talks to her about _certain things_; as for the last, of course that’s impossible with Marina _since the experience_ we had. But anyhow she is nicer than one would have thought at first sight. It was lovely on the way home. Driving back from Unter-Toifen we sat quite differently.
In our break, instead of the Weiners, there were three students from Munich, they were awfully nice, and we sang all the songs we knew; especially “Hoch vom Dachstein, wo der Aar nur haust,” and “Forelle” and “Wo mein Schatz ist,” were lovely, and the people in two different breaks sang together. And then some of them sang some Alpine songs and yodelled till the hills echoed. Two or three of the men in the third break were rather tipsy and _Hero Siegfried!!_ was one of them. Aunt Alma had a frightful headache; it was utterly idiotic for her to come, and we did not know yet what was still to happen. At every house from which a girl had come there was a serenade. And next evening there was to be a great raffle of the mementoes we had bought, but Father would not let us go to that.