into Bohemia or Austria. Pleasant kindly
people they were, always politely saluting
us as they passed; sometimes stopping with
a few words of sympathetic enjoyment of the
subject of our work.  The Zartoffs we found
delightful acquaintances.  With them we
visited other Grunds, and often the Fraülein
sister brought her book and a nice luncheon
in a little brown basket; and in one of the
gorges, through which a streamlet ran to
turn the great wheels of a neighbouring
mill, we took our noonday luncheon.
From the mill, the stalwart country-woman
brought us coffee, milk, and butter, and
sometimes she saved the Fraülein the
trouble of bringing the brown basket, by
setting forth black bread and eggs.  How
hard and how delightfully we worked with
such pleasant surroundings! Our only
interruptions were the peasant passing us,
with his oxen, dragging down the narrow
road the great logs of wood from the
forest above, to be sawn at the mill below.
The only drawback to our full enjoyment
was the spectacle of women passing,
carrying on their backs immense bundles of
wood, eight or ten feet long and three or
four feet thick.  Poor creatures! It was
hard to see them toiling down, so laden,
with their bare feet and bare heads, and
most of them with frightful goitres.

On Sunday mornings the bell of the
parish church called every one to mass;
and the peasants, young and old, trooped
in from the cottages far and near.  Such
very old women came, leaning on their
staffs, carrying their beads and their
prayer-books! Hideous, wrinkled, old
creatures, with enormous goitres; and little
children so fresh and lovely that we looked
on them and marvelled how it were possible
for such fair young things ever to become
such old women.  The beauty of these
peasant lives is very short. Past their first
youth, hard labour and sun and storm soon
change the soft pink skin into parchment,
and wrinkles take the place of dimples.

The church was little, old, and odd; and
the priest was suited to his church: a
little, wrinkled, old man, with a crooked
shoulder and a queer voice.  The church
bell had been cracked for many a year;
the dismal old organ had confirmed
asthma; and the schoolmaster performed
upon it marvels of shambling execution.
The children sang in harsh strong tones,
and the baker's daughter, a tall, handsome
girl, led the choir, and on week days
carried a huge basket on her back full of
bread or flour, and served the customers
at the shop. The walls of the church were
adorned with wreaths of dusty artificial
flowers, with bows of riband attached;
they were once of different colours, but
time and dust had reduced them to about
the same hue.

We sat on high wooden benches, and
looked at the altar, painted red and blue
and brown, with dingy paper bouquets of
faded colours under glass shades, and more
dusty wreaths.  But the wonders of the
sanctuary were two old green lanterns
standing up high on red sticks, and
helplessly inclining toward one another: one
having a cross surmounting it, which its
companion must have lost years ago.
They had perhaps been used to light the
sanctuary in some early time.  The priest
had not to complain of absentees.  The
women and the men, the boys and the
girls, crowded the church even to the door
step, and were very devout and well
behaved.  All the women and girls wore
handkerchiefs of varied and bright colours
on their heads, and clean aprons over their
print gowns.  Each woman carried her
handkerchief carefully wrapped around her
treasured prayer-book, and held it well in
sight as she marched in and out.

Fraülein Fanny surprised us, early one
day, with a party of English ladies whom
she was taking care of in her usual
energetic style.  She would take no denial,
we must go to the Prebischthor with them.
So our brushes had to be laid aside, and
we joined them. It was a long jaunt to
the top of the Prebischthor: a continued
ascent of a rocky mountain for two hours,
winding up a road cut out of the hills
among the crags, until finally only a foot
path remained that led up over and around
cliffs till we came into a great rocky
amphitheatre, the rocks rising like a
gigantic wall all about us, with shafts
and columns, and needles of immense
irregular shapes, piercing the sky.  At last we
gained the height, where a great archway
of stone leaves room below for houses to
be built, and a tall pine tree to find its
bed beneath it.  Here was perched the
inevitable restaurant, and we dined with an
appetite and with a wonderful view before
us of the Bohemian mountains in all their
lovely lines and soft hues.  On our way
we had met many tourists, and Fraülein
Fanny was social with every one.  She was
particularly anxious for Bella and myself to
make acquaintances, "to continue," as she
said, "the study of the human nature."

"And also you are artists, and shall