ve, and the rivers roll side by side, without mingling their
waters. At length they meet and blend: the distinction is lost, the
polluted Arve is absorbed in the haughty and majestic Rhone.

We were to leave Geneva the next morning. Before night our guide came:
he was ill, would we take his son? The proposition did not please us;
it was a dangerous journey, and many had been lost in the mountain
passes.

"Erwald knows as much of the passes as I do," said the father, "and he
is anxious to go; his sister lives at Maglan, and she is down with the
fever."

I saw how it was. Erwald was to go to Maglan to visit his sister; and
if the father could arrange for him to go with us, of course he
himself would be free to make another engagement.

"Do you feel sure that you can guide us safely?" I asked of Erwald.

"Certainly, monsieur; I have been over the way many times. If I was
not quite sure, I would not offer to go."

"Not if you could gain a good many francs by going?"

"It would not be right to say to you that I knew the way, if I did
not."

The boy's face was attractive, his voice gentle, and his blue eyes
full of tenderness. His look and his answer delighted me.

"No, it would not be right, Erwald; and because you love the right and
feel sure that you can serve us, I will take you in your father's
place."

"I am glad, very glad; and now I must see my mother. Vesta is sick and
she will be glad to see any one from home."

Erwald's face was glowing; I turned to the father.

"Erwald is a good child," he said. "At first we felt vexed with him
and Vesta for leaving the church, and not a few times did we punish
them. But they were so good and patient that it troubled us; and now
their mother is a Protestant, and I never go to mass."

It was explained, the serene calm of the earnest blue eyes: Erwald was
a Christian.

Early in the morning our guide made his appearance. His countenance
sweet and pleasing as it was the night previous. He was accompanied by
a little woman in a black gown and bodice, with a high cap and the
whitest of kerchiefs--a mild sweet-faced woman, whom we knew at once
as his mother.

"You'll tell Vesta mother thinks of her all the time, and prays the
Father every hour to make her well again."

On my asking if she was not afraid to have her son go on so dangerous
a journey, she answered:

"Our Father will take care of him and bring him back to us."

The simple faith of the good woman struc