daz mountain--himself, his wife, their
eldest girl, and Alicia. The adaptation of his famous manner to that
strange scenery, its browns and French greys and filmy blues, so
preoccupied him that he had scant time for becoming intimate with these
hills and valleys. From the little gravelled terrace in front of the
annex, out of which he had made a studio, there was an absorbing view
over the pan-tiled old town of Die. It glistened below in the early or
late sunlight, flat-roofed and of pinkish-yellow, with the dim, blue
River Drome circling one side, and cut, dark cypress-trees dotting the
vineyarded slopes. And he painted it continually. What Alicia did with
herself they none of them very much knew, except that she would come in
and talk ecstatically of things and beasts and people she had seen. One
favourite haunt of hers they did visit, a ruined monastery high up in
the amphitheatre of the Glandaz mountain. They had their lunch up there,
a very charming and remote spot, where the watercourses and ponds and
chapel of the old monks were still visible, though converted by the
farmer to his use. Alicia left them abruptly in the middle of their
praises, and they had not seen her again till they found her at home
when they got back. It was almost as if she had resented laudation of
her favourite haunt. She had brought in with her a great bunch of golden
berries, of which none of them knew the name; berries almost as
beautiful as these spindleberries glowing on the stone of the wall. And
a fourth memory of Alicia came.

Christmas Eve, a sparkling frost, and every tree round the little
_chateau_ rimed so that they shone in the starlight, as though dowered
with cherry blossoms. Never were more stars in clear black sky above
the whitened earth. Down in the little town a few faint points of yellow
light twinkled in the mountain wind, keen as a razor's edge. A
fantastically lovely night--quite "Japanese," but cruelly cold. Five
minutes on the terrace had been enough for all of them except Alicia.
She--unaccountable, crazy creature--would not come in. Twice he had gone
out to her, with commands, entreaties, and extra wraps; the third time
he could not find her, she had deliberately avoided his onslaught and
slid off somewhere to keep this mad vigil by frozen starlight. When at
last she did come in she reeled as if drunk. They tried to make her
really drunk, to put warmth back into her. No good! In two days she was
down with double