--SHAKESPEARE.

As we dipped down below the summit of the mountain, we stepped from
under the snow-fog, as if it had been a great white, hanging nightcap.
The air smelled like early winter, and was vibrant with the melody of
cowbells. On snow-covered eminences near and far, dark, sentinel
larches watched us, weeping slow tears from every naked spine. So high
had they climbed, so acclimatised to the mountains did these
soldier-trees seem, that I named them for myself the Chasseurs Alpins
of the forest.

"We shall have fine weather to-morrow," said Joseph, as we left the
snow and came to what he called the "_terre grasse_," which was greasy
and slippery under foot. "See, Monsieur, a worm; he comes up out of
his hole, and the earth clings to him as he walks abroad. If he were
clean, that would be a sign of another bad day to follow."

"At least we are going down to summer again," I replied; "also to the
young Monsieur; and to Innocentina. But perhaps you are glad of a rest
from her sharp tongue."

Joseph shrugged his shoulders. "I am used to it now, Monsieur," said
he; and I turned away my face to hide a smile. I knew that he missed
the girl, and I was still more keenly aware that I missed a comrade.
My fleeting impressions were hardly worth catching and taming, without
him to help cage them; without his vivid mind to help colour the
thoughts, which mine only sketched in black and white, it was easier
to leave the canvas blank.

We had decided last night that it would not be wise to attempt the
journey by way of the Dent du Nivolets, as it was on a higher level
than the summit of Mont Revard, and we should risk being again
extinguished under a nightcap of snow. We descended, therefore, by the
simpler and shorter route, but it was full of interest for the
strangeness of the landscape, and the buildings which we reached on
lower planes.

The houses were no longer characteristically French, but a bastard
Swiss. The heavy, overhanging roofs were thatched, and of enormous
thickness; the walls of grey stone, with roughly carved, skeleton
balconies. The peasants no longer smiled at us in good-natured
curiosity, but regarded us dourly, though they were gravely civil if
we had questions to ask.

Although I gave Joseph no instructions, and he made no suggestions, by
common consent we hastened on as if a prize were to be bestowed for
our good speed, at the end of the journey. On other days we had
sauntered,