Alide by Emma Lazarus

It was a foggy day in early June, with occasional heavy showers of rain, when Madame Duroc and her daughters set out on their journey to Strasburg. The pastor could not leave his parish-duties to accompany them, so he drove with them over to the Drusenheim inn, and, after seeing them comfortably seated in the diligence, with many an affectionate embrace and injunction to take care of themselves and each other, he bade them Godspeed. It seemed like a flat, level country across which the diligence was painfully dragged by the steaming horses, for the majestic shapes of the mountains were lost in the fog which clung to their summits and sides. Rahel was nervous and excited at the thought of all that would be expected of her in the city, and irritated, moreover, by the unpleasantness and tedium of the drive through the rain, when a little sunshine would have made it a charming excursion.

But Alide was satisfied with a glimpse now and then through the torn cloud-curtain of meadow, hill, or leafy wood: she had learned every curve and landmark of the road since Wolfgang had been going constantly back and forth. There was even an agreeable mystery about the dense vapor which encompassed them, and she felt as though she were traveling to an enchanted city that would gradually shape itself out of the mist.