, with a sigh, "I am neither young nor
active."

"Nonsense, mother, you're quite young yet, you know, and as active as a
kitten when you've a mind to be. Come, we'll have a couple of porters
and a chair to have you carried when you knock up."

Notwithstanding the glowing prospects of ease and felicity thus opened
up to her, Mrs Stoutley resolutely refused to go on this excursion, but
she generously allowed Emma to go if so disposed. Emma, being disposed,
it was finally arranged that, on the following day, she, the Captain,
Lewis, and Lawrence, with Gillie White as her page, should proceed up
the sides of Mont Blanc with the man of science, and over the Mer de
Glace to the Jardin.

CHAPTER NINE.

A SOLID STREAM.

There is a river of ice in Switzerland, which, taking its rise on the
hoary summit of Mont Blanc, flows through a sinuous mountain-channel,
and terminates its grand career by liquefaction in the vale of Chamouni.
A mighty river it is in all respects, and a wonderful one--full of
interest and mystery and apparent contradiction. It has a grand volume
and sweep, varying from one to four miles in width, and is about twelve
miles long, with a depth of many hundreds of feet. It is motionless to
the eye, yet it descends into the plain continually. It is hard and
unyielding in its nature, yet it flows as really and steadily, if not
with as lithe a motion, as a liquid river. It is _not_ a half solid
mass like mud, which might roll slowly down an incline; it is solid,
clear, transparent, brittle ice, which refuses to bend, and cracks
sharply under a strain; nevertheless, it has its waves and rapids,
cross-currents, eddies, and cascades, which, seen from a moderate
distance, display all the grace and beauty of flowing water--as if a
grand river in all its varied parts, calm and turbulent, had been
actually and suddenly arrested in its course and frozen to the bottom.

It is being melted perpetually too. The fierce sun of summer sends
millions of tiny streamlets down into its interior, which collect,
augment, cut channels for themselves through the ice, and finally gush
into the plain from its lower end in the form of a muddy river. Even in
winter this process goes on, yet the ice-river never melts entirely
away, but holds on its cold, stately, solemn course from year to year--
has done so for unknown ages, and will probably do so to the end of
time. It is picturesque in its surroundings, majestic in its