said Cyril, who had been standing impatiently at the door during
the colloquy; "when you young ladies and people have done poetising,
etcetera, the guide's quite ready."

"Come along, then; we're soon equipped," said Violet, adjusting at the
looking-glass her pretty straw hat, with its drooping feather, and the
blue veil tied round it.

"I say, Miss Kennedy--bother take it though, I can't always be saying
Miss Kennedy--it's too long. I shall call you Eva--may I?" said Cyril.

"By all means, if you like."

"Well, then, Eva, the guide _is_ such a rum fellow; he looks like a
revived mummy out of--out of Palmyra," said he, blundering a little in
his geography.

"Mummy or no," said Julian, "he'll carry all our provisions and plaids
to-day up to the top, which is more than most of your A Cs would do."

"A C--what does that mean?" asked Violet. "One sees it constantly in
the visitors' books."

"Don't you know, Vi?" said Cyril. "It stands for athletic climber."

"Alpine Club, you little monkey," said Kennedy, throwing a fir-cone at
him. "_You'll_ be qualified for the Alpine Club, Miss Home, before the
day's over, I've no doubt."

"No," said Julian, "they want 13,000 feet, I believe, and the Schilthorn
is only 9,000."

"Nearly three times higher than Snowdon; only fancy!" said Cyril.

Meanwhile the party had started with fair weather, and in high spirits.
The guide, with the gentlemen's plaids strapped together, led the way
cheerily, occasionally talking his vile patois with Julian and Mr
Kennedy, or laughing heartily at Cyril's "bad language"--for Cyril, not
being strong in German, exercised a delightful ingenuity in making a
very few words go a very long way. Kennedy walked generally with Eva
and Violet, while Julian often joined them, and Cyril, always with some
new scheme in hand, or some new fancy darting through his brain, ran
chattering, from one group to another, plucking bilberries and wild
strawberries in handfuls, and trying the merits of his alpenstock as a
leaping-pole.

The light of morning flowed down in an ever-broadening river, and peak
after peak flashed first into rose, then into crimson, and then into
golden light, as the sun fell on their fields of snow; high overhead
rose Alp after Alp of snow-white and luminous cloud, but the flowing
curves of the hills themselves stood unveiled, with their crests cut
clearly on the pale, divine, lustrous blue of heaven, and our happy band
of traveller