ng in their
coffee. Anna was there alone. She had on a flax-blue shirt, open at the
neck, a short green skirt, and a grey-green velvety hat, small, with one
black-cock's feather. Why could not people always wear such nice things,
and be as splendid-looking! And he said:

"You do look jolly, Mrs. Stormer!"

She did not answer for so long that he wondered if it had been rude to
say that. But she DID look so strong, and swift, and happy-looking.

Down the hill, through a wood of larch-trees, to the river, and across
the bridge, to mount at once by a path through hay-fields. How could old
Stormer stay in bed on such a morning! The peasant girls in their
blue linen skirts were already gathering into bundles what the men had
scythed. One, raking at the edge of a field, paused and shyly nodded to
them. She had the face of a Madonna, very calm and grave and sweet,
with delicate arched brows--a face it was pure pleasure to see. The boy
looked back at her. Everything to him, who had never been out of England
before, seemed strange and glamorous. The chalets, with their long wide
burnt-brown wooden balconies and low-hanging eaves jutting far beyond
the walls; these bright dresses of the peasant women; the friendly
little cream-coloured cows, with blunt, smoke-grey muzzles. Even the
feel in the air was new, that delicious crisp burning warmth that lay so
lightly as it were on the surface of frozen stillness; and the special
sweetness of all places at the foot of mountains--scent of pine-gum,
burning larch-wood, and all the meadow flowers and grasses. But
newest of all was the feeling within him--a sort of pride, a sense
of importance, a queer exhilaration at being alone with her, chosen
companion of one so beautiful.

They passed all the other pilgrims bound the same way--stout square
Germans with their coats slung through straps, who trailed behind them
heavy alpenstocks, carried greenish bags, and marched stolidly at a pace
that never varied, growling, as Anna and the boy went by: "Aber eilen
ist nichts!"

But those two could not go fast enough to keep pace with their spirits.
This was no real climb--just a training walk to the top of the Nuvolau;
and they were up before noon, and soon again descending, very hungry.
When they entered the little dining-room of the Cinque Torre Hutte, they
found it occupied by a party of English people, eating omelettes,
who looked at Anna with faint signs of recognition, but did not cease
ta