dog, and it
was no longer safe for him to live much out-of-doors. The confinement
had softened his temper, but it had rendered him effeminate and
self-indulgent. He had, in fact, been spoiled by the boarders, and he
now expected to be present at meals, and to be fed with choice morsels
from their plates. As the cold weather came on he developed rheumatism,
and demanded our sympathy as well as our hospitality. If Elise in
waiting on table brushed him with her skirts, he set up a lamentable
cry, and rushed up to the nearest guest, and put his chin on the table
for his greater convenience in being comforted. At a dance which we had
one evening Poppi insisted upon being present, and in his efforts to
keep out of the way and in the apprehensions he suffered he abandoned
himself to moans and howls that sometimes drowned the piano.

Yet Poppi was an amiable invalid, and he was on terms of
perfect friendship with the cats, of which there were three
generations--Boulette, Boulette's mother, and Boulette's grandmother.
They were not readily distinguishable from one another, and I really
forget which it was that used to mount to the dining-room window
without, and paw the glass till we let her in; but we all felt that it
was a great accomplishment, and reflected credit upon us.

VI

The vineyard began immediately behind the laurels that enclosed the
house, and at a little distance, where the mountain began to lift from
the narrow plateau, stood the farmer's stone cottage, with the stables
and the wine-vaults under the same roof. Mademoiselle gave us grapes
from her vines at dinner, and the walnut-trees seemed public property,
though I think one was not allowed to knock the nuts off, but was only
free of the windfalls. A little later they were all gathered, and on a
certain night the girls and the young men of the village have the custom
to meet and make a frolic of cracking them, as they used in husking corn
with us. Then the oil is pressed out, and the commune apportions each
family its share, according to the amount of nuts contributed. This nut
oil imparts a sentiment to salad which the olive cannot give, and
mushrooms pickled in it become the most delicious and indigestible of
all imaginable morsels. I have had dreams from those pickled mushrooms
which, if I could write them out, would make my fortune as a romantic
novelist.

The Swiss breakfast was our old friend the Italian breakfast, with
butter and Gruyere cheese ad