d the late Miss McGregor's cottage, and as
the Queen always drove in an open carriage, with her tea basket
strapped on behind, we could see her pass very plainly. Our admiration
for the sturdy old lady was very much tempered by our sympathy with
the ladies-in-waiting, with whom driving backward on the front seat
did not apparently agree. Their poor noses were very red, and the
expression of their faces anxious, not to say cross, as they miserably
coughed and sneezed."

At Braemar the working fever continued, and _Treasure Island_ was
planned, but when autumn came they fled before the Scotch mists, and
once more wended their way to the frozen Alps, settling for the winter
in the Chalet am Stein. From mist to snow was but a rueful change, but
this time Louis's health seemed to gain greater benefit, and a
reasonable amount of work was accomplished.

So the level current of their lives flowed on through a rather mild
winter, with an occasional _foehn_[20] wailing about their chalet as
the "rocs might have wailed in the valley of diamonds," until one
morning they heard a bird sing, and soon the snow on the higher levels
began to melt and send the water with a rush down the sides of the
streets. Almost in a breath the hill slopes about them turned as white
with crocus blooms as they had been in their winter covering of snow.
Into their hearts something of the springtime entered, and one day
Louis sat singing beside his wife, who writes: "I do not care for the
music, but it makes me feel so happy to see him so well. When I wake
in the morning I wonder what it is that brings such a glow to my
heart, and then I remember!"

[Footnote 20: Foehn--a violent south wind in
Switzerland.]

Yet it was then, as the flowers began to bloom and the birds to sing,
that many of those to whom they had become attached with the pitiful
bond of a common affliction broke the slender cord that held them to
life and quietly slipped away. Of these she writes: "Louis is much cut
up because a young man whom he liked and had been tobogganing with has
been found dead in his bed. Bertie still hovers between life and
death. Poor little Mrs. Doney is gone; my heart is sad for those two
lovely little girls. In a place like this there are many depressing
things, but it is encouraging to know that many are going away cured."

Their own case had gone better, and Doctor Ruedi had given them leave
"to live in France, fifteen miles