back and forth the conversational
shuttlecock, until I found myself losing straw by straw my load of
homesickness, and becoming more buoyant of spirit in the muleteer's
society.

After the splendours of the Simplon it seemed to rue, as the windings
of the Great St. Bernard Pass shut us farther and farther away from
Martigny, that this was in comparison but a peaceful valley. It was a
cosey cleft among the mountains, with just room for the river to be
frilled with green between its walls. There was a look of homeliness
about the sloping pastures, which slept in the sunshine, lulled by the
song of the swift-flowing Dranse.

The name "Great St. Bernard" had conjured up hopes of rugged
grandeur, which did not seem destined to be fulfilled, and at last I
confided my disappointment to Joseph. "If Monsieur will wait an all
little hour, perhaps he will yet be surprised," he answered, breaking
into French. "We have a long way to go, before we come to the best."

We walked briskly, lunched at the dull village of Orsieres; and
delaying as short a time as possible, pushed on--indeed, we pushed on
much farther than Joseph had expected, when he suggested our sleeping
at Bourg St. Pierre. "We might go higher," said he, "before dark, but
it would be late before we could reach the Hospice, and there is no
place where we could rest for the night after St. Pierre, unless
Monsieur would care to stop at the Cantine de Proz."

"What is the Cantine de Proz?" I asked, trudging along the stony
road, with my eyes held by a huge snow mountain which had suddenly
loomed above the green shoulders of lesser hills, like a great white
barrier across the world.

"The Cantine de Proz is but a house, nothing more, Monsieur, in the
loneliest and wildest part of the Pass--how lonely, and how wild, you
cannot guess yet by what you have seen. The people who keep the house
are good folk, and they live there all the year round, even in winter,
when the snow is at the second-story windows, and they must cut narrow
paths, with tall white walls, before they can feed their cattle. These
people sell you a cup of coffee, or a glass of beer, or of liqueur,
and they have a spare room, which is very clean. If any traveller
wishes to spend a night, they will make him as comfortable as they
can. One English gentleman came, and liked the place so well, that he
stayed for months, and wrote a book, I have been told. But it is
desolate. Perhaps Monsieur would think it