FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   >>  
square, and her old church on its heights; then came Montreux with its many-hotelled slopes and levels, and chalets peeping from the brows of the mountains that crowd it upon the lake. All these places keep multitudes of swans, whose snow reddened in the sunset that stained the water more and more darkly crimson till we landed at Villeneuve. VIII When December came, and the vintage and elections were over, and the winter had come down into the valley to stay, Italy called to us more and more appealingly. Yet it was not so easy to pull up and go. I liked the row-boat on the lake, though it was getting too cold and rough for that; I liked the way the railway guards called out "Verney-Montreux!" and "Territey-Chillon!" as they ran alongside the carriages at these stations; I liked the pastel portraits of mademoiselle's grandmothers on the gray walls of our pretty chamber that overlooked the lake, and overheard the lightest lisp of that sometimes bellowing body of water; I liked the notion of the wild-ducks among the reeds by the Rhone, though I had no wish to kill them; I liked our little corner fireplace, where I covered a log of the _grand bois_ every night in the coals, and found it a perfect line of bristling embers in the morning; I liked Poppi and the three generations of Boulettes; and, yes, I liked mademoiselle and all her boarders; and I hated to leave these friends. Mademoiselle made a grand Thanksgiving supper in honor of the American nation, for which we did our best to figure both at the table, where smoked a turkey driven over the Alps from his Italian home for that fete (there are no Swiss turkeys), and in the dance, for which he had wellnigh disabled us. Poppi was in uncommon tune that night, and the voice of this pensive rheumatic lent a unique interest to every change of the Virginia reel. But these pleasures had to end; it grew colder and colder; we had long since consumed all the old grape-roots which constituted our _petit bois_, and we were ravaging our way through an expensive pile of _grand bois_ without much effect upon the climate. One morning the most enterprising spirit of our party kindled such a mighty blaze on our chamber hearth that she set the chimney on fire, thus threatening the Swiss republic with the loss of the insurance, and involving mademoiselle in I know not what penalties for having a chimney that could be set on fire. By the blessing of Heaven, the vigor of mademoisel
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   >>  



Top keywords:

mademoiselle

 
chamber
 
colder
 

called

 
morning
 
Montreux
 
chimney
 

pensive

 

turkeys

 

wellnigh


disabled
 

boarders

 

Boulettes

 

uncommon

 
Mademoiselle
 
figure
 

rheumatic

 

nation

 

supper

 
American

Italian
 

Thanksgiving

 

smoked

 

friends

 
turkey
 

driven

 

hearth

 
threatening
 

republic

 
mighty

spirit
 

enterprising

 

kindled

 

insurance

 

blessing

 
Heaven
 

mademoisel

 

involving

 

penalties

 
consumed

pleasures

 

interest

 

unique

 

change

 
Virginia
 

generations

 

effect

 
climate
 

expensive

 

constituted