ough this
gleaming gauze the two rivers threaded like strings of turquoise
beads.

"How the Boy would have loved this!" I found myself exclaiming over my
shoulder to Molly. "He used often to talk of the great charm of
descending from heights upon places, especially new-old places, which
one has never seen before."

"Used he?" echoed Molly. "Why, that is rather odd. It is exactly what
Mercedes has just been saying."

The Perpetual Mushroom moved impatiently. I fancied by the movement of
her shoulder that she resented having her thoughts passed on to me. I
hastened to turn away, sorry that I had reminded her inadvertently of
my cumbersome existence; but I could not help wondering what she had
been thinking of in the monastery when we had walked for full five
moments side by side.

There was no disappointment when we had plunged into the silver haze,
torn it apart, and entered the town over a dignified bridge. All
around us spread the city old and new; above, on the hills, were
numerous chateaux, a strange fort, and the queerest of ancient
convents, like the cork castles I had seen in shop windows and coveted
as a child. In the town there were statues, many statues--statues
everywhere and in honour of everybody. Bayard was there, dying; and
there was a delightfully human old fellow (humorous even in marble)
who cleverly "lay low" till his worst enemy had finished an
elaborately fortified castle, then promptly took it. Not a spacious
modern street that had not at least one magnificent old palace, a
facade of joyous Renaissance invention, or at least a crumbling
mediaeval doorway of divine beauty; and nothing of romance was lost
because Grenoble makes gloves for all the world.

We sailed out of the town along the straight five-mile road to the
Pont de Claix, and now it was ho! for the Basses Alpes, over a road
which might have been engineered for an emperor's motoring; past the
quaint twin bridges spanning the stream side by side, which our
guide-book taught us to recognise as one of the Seven Wonders (with
capitals) of Dauphine. Then came a valley, almost theatrical in its
romantic grace. One would not have believed in it for a moment if one
had seen it first in a sketch. Even the railway, on which we soon
looked down, was inspired to gymnastic feats, leaping across chasms on
giddy viaducts, and twisting back upon itself in corkscrew tunnels.
There were thrilling retrospective views away to the giant Alps we
were le