forth. Those forget-me-nots, for instance, are
bits of turquoise, and that poppy is cut from a
piece of coral."

"I like the Roman ones best," said Christien.
"What place is that with all the arches?"

"This is the Coliseum, and the one next to it
is St. Peter's. But we Florentines care little for
the Roman work. It is not half so fine or so
valuable as ours. The Romans make their
mosaics of composition."

"Composition or no, I like the little landscapes
best," said Christien. "There is a lovely one,
with a pointed building, and a tree, and mountains
at the back. How I should like that one
for Marie!"

"You may have it for eight francs," replied
Battisto; we sold two of them yesterday for ten
each, it represents the tomb of Caius Cestius,
near Rome."

"A tomb!" echoed Christien, considerably
dismayed. "Diable! That would be a dismal
present to one's bride."

"She would never guess that it was a tomb,
if you did not tell her," suggested Stefano.

Christien shook his head.

"That would be next door to deceiving her,"
said he.

"Nay," interposed my brother, "the owner of
that tomb has been dead these eighteen or
nineteen hundred years. One almost forgets that
he was ever buried in it."

"Eighteen or nineteen hundred years? Then
he was a heathen?"

"Undoubtedly, if by that you mean that he
lived before Christ."

Christien's face lighted up immediately.

"Oh, that settles the question," said he,
pulling out his little canvas purse, and paying his
money down at once. "A heathen's tomb is as
good as no tomb at all. I'll have it made into a
brooch for her, at lnterlaken. Tell me, Battisto,
what shall you take home to Italy for your
Margherita?"

Battisto, laughed, and chinked his eight francs.
"That depends on trade," said he; "if we make
good profits between this and Christmas, I may
take her a Swiss muslin from Berne; but we
have already been away seven months, and we
have hardly made a hundred francs over and above
our expenses."

And with this, the talk turned upon general
matters, the Florentines locked away their
treasures, Christien restrapped his pack, and my
brother and all went down together, and
breakfasted in the open air outside the inn.

It was a magnificent morning; cloudless and
sunny, with a cool breeze that rustled in the
vine upon the porch, and flecked the table with
shifting shadows of green leaves. All around
and about them stood the great mountains, with
their blue-white glaciers bristling down to the
verge of the pastures, and the pine-woods
creeping darkly up their sides. To the left, the
Wetterhorn; to the right, the Eigher; straight
before them, dazzling and imperishable, like an
obelisk of frosted silver, the Schreckhorn, or
Peak of Terror. Breakfast over, they bade
farewell to their hostess, and, mountain-staff in hand,
took the path to the Wengern Alp. Half in
light, half in shadow, lay the quiet valley, dotted
over with farms, and traversed by a torrent
that rushed, milk-white, from its prison in the
glacier. The three lads walked briskly in
advance, their voices chiming together every now
and then in chorus of laughter. Somehow my
brother felt sad. He lingered behind, and, plucking
a little red flower from the bank, watched
it hurry away with the torrent, like a life on the
stream of time. Why was his heart so heavy,
and why were their hearts so light?

As the day went on, my brother's melancholy,
and the mirth of the young men, seemed to
increase. Full of youth and hope, they talked of
the joyous future, and built up pleasant castles
in the air. Battisto, grown more communicative,
admitted that to marry Margherita, and become
a master mosaicist, would fulfil the dearest
dream of his life. Stefano, not being in love,
preferred to travel. Christien, who seemed to
be the most prosperous, declared that it was
his darling ambition to rent a farm in his native
Kander Valley, and lead the patriarchal life of
his fathers. As for the musical-box trade, he
said, one should live in Geneva to make it
answer; and, for his part, he loved the pine-forests
and the snow-peaks, better than all the towns in
Europe. Marie, too, had been born among the
mountains, and it would break her heart, if she
thought she were to live in Geneva all her life,
and never see the Kander Thal again. Chatting
thus, the morning wore on to noon, and the party
rested awhile in the shade of a clump of gigantic
firs festooned with trailing banners of grey-green
moss.

Here they ate their lunch, to the silvery music
of one of Christien's little boxes, and by-and-by
heard the sullen echo of an avalanche far away
on the shoulder of the Jungfrau.

Then they went on again in the burning afternoon,
to heights where the Alp-rose fails from the
sterile steep, and the brown lichen grows more and
more scantily among the stones. Here, only the
bleached and barren skeletons of a forest of
pines varied the desolate monotony; and high on
the summit of the pass, stood a little solitary
inn, between them and the sky.

At this inn they rested again, and drank to the
health of Christien and his bride, in a jug of
country wine. He was in uncontrollable spirits
and shook hands with them all, over and over again.

"By nightfall to-morrow," said he, "I shall
hold her once more in my arms! It is now nearly
two years since I came home to see her, at the
end of my apprenticeship. Now I am foreman,
with a salary of thirty francs a week, and well
able to marry."

"Thirty francs a week!" echoed Battisto.
"Corpo di Bacco! that is a little fortune."

Christien's face beamed.

"Yes," said he,"we shall be very happy; and,