s. The white shirt-sleeves are very full
and fastened up above the elbow with coloured ribbon. If the weather
is cool, the women wear a short black jacket, with satin yoke and high
puffed sleeves. But, whatever the weather may be, they make no change in
the large, full dark skirts, almost completely covered with immense
silk aprons, by preference light blue. It is not a remarkably brilliant
dress, compared with that which one may still see in some districts of
Norway or Sweden, but upon the whole it suits the women of the Ampezzo
wonderfully.

For my part, I think that when a woman has found a dress that becomes
her, it is a waste of time to send to Paris for a fashion-plate.

III.

When the excitement of the Festa had subsided, we were free to abandon
ourselves to the excursions in which the neighbourhood of Cortina
abounds, and to which the guide-book earnestly calls every right-minded
traveller. A walk through the light-green shadows of the larch-woods to
the tiny lake of Ghedina, where we could see all the four dozen trout
swimming about in the clear water and catching flies; a drive to the
Belvedere, where there are superficial refreshments above and profound
grottos below; these were trifles, though we enjoyed them. But the great
mountains encircling us on every side, standing out in clear view with
that distinctness and completeness of vision which is one charm of the
Dolomites, seemed to summon us to more arduous enterprises. Accordingly,
the Deacon and I selected the easiest one, engaged a guide, and prepared
for the ascent.

Monte Nuvolau is not a perilous mountain. I am quite sure that at my
present time of life I should be unwilling to ascend a perilous mountain
unless there were something extraordinarily desirable at the top,
or remarkably disagreeable at the bottom. Mere risk has lost the
attractions which it once had. As the father of a family I felt bound to
abstain from going for amusement into any place which a Christian lady
might not visit with propriety and safety. Our preparation for Nuvolau,
therefore, did not consist of ropes, ice-irons, and axes, but simply of
a lunch and two long sticks.

Our way led us, in the early morning, through the clustering houses of
Lacedel, up the broad, green slope that faces Cortina on the west, to
the beautiful Alp Pocol. Nothing could exceed the pleasure of such a
walk in the cool of the day, while the dew still lies on the short, rich
grass, and the myr