y. "I like the other name
better."

She moved beside him with a buoyant, untiring step, without haste and
without effort. He told her that he would like to take her up into the
Himalayas. She would make a good climber. In his heart he knew there was
no place on earth to which he wouldn't like to take her. She was born to
be a man's comrade, observant, unexacting, level-headed. She was the
kind of girl you wouldn't mind seeing in a tight place if you were
there, of course, to get her out of it. Then he pulled himself up and
told himself not to be fanciful.

It was rather a fanciful morning: the day and the snowy hillside and the
endless, pungent sweetness of the sunny air were like a spell. He found
he was telling Claire about the things he used to do when he was a boy.
He went on doing it because the adventures of the Staines family made
her laugh.

He had not supposed that James, Charles, Isabella, Dolores, and he
himself were particularly funny before, but he was delighted to discover
their hidden gift. Claire wanted to hear everything about them, their
ponies, their dogs, their sharp disgraces, and their more wonderful
escapes and revenges; but she didn't want them to be punished, and Winn
had to hasten over those frequent and usually protracted disasters.

They had the woods to themselves; there was no sound at all except the
occasional soft drop of melting snow. Once they stood quite still
holding their breath to watch the squirrels skim from tree to tree as if
they were weaving the measures of a mystic dance. If it hadn't been for
the squirrels they might have been the only creatures alive in all the
silent, sparkling earth.

The mountains spread out around them with the reticent hush of
interrupted consciousness. They seemed to be on the verge of further
revelations, and were withheld from a last definite whisper only by the
intrusion of humanity.

"I know they could speak if they liked," Claire murmured. "What do you
suppose they'd say?"

"Let's have an avalanche and knock the silly blighters out of our valley
for good and all," Winn suggested.

Claire disposed of Davos with a wave of her hand.

"But they don't mind us, do they?" she urged. "Because we're so happy
and we like them so. Doesn't the air make you feel awfully funny and
happy?"

"Yes," Winn admitted; "but it's not all the air, you know."

Claire wanted to know what else it was; but as Winn didn't offer to
explain, she felt that perhaps