by-and-by—who knows?—we may end our days in
the Kander Thal, and bring up our children to
succeed us. Ah! If Marie knew that I should be
there to-morrow night, how delighted she would
be!"

"How so, Christien?" said my brother. "Does
she not expect you?"

"Not a bit of it. She has no idea that I can
be there till the day after to-morrow—nor could
I, if I took the road all round by Unterseen and
Frütigen. I mean to sleep to-night at
Lauterbrunnen, and to-morrow morning shall strike
across the Tschlingel glacier to Kandersteg. If I
rise a little before daybreak, I shall be at home
by sunset."

At this moment the path took a sudden turn,
and began to descend in sight of an immense
perspective of very distant valleys. Christien flung
his cap into the air, and uttered a great shout.

"Look!" said he, stretching out his arms as if
to embrace all the dear familiar scene: "O! Look!
There are the hills and woods of Interlaken, and
here, below the precipices on which we stand, lies
Lauterbrunnen! God be praised, who has made
our native land so beautiful!"

The Italians smiled at each other, thinking their
own Arno valley far more fair; but my brother's
heart warmed to the boy, and echoed his
thanksgiving in that spirit which accepts all beauty as
a birthright and an inheritance. And now their
course lay across an immense plateau, all rich
with corn-fields and meadows, and studded with
substantial homesteads built of old brown wood,
with huge sheltering eaves, and strings of Indian
corn hanging like golden ingots along the carven
balconies. Blue whortleberries grew beside the
footway, and now and then they came upon a wild
gentian, or a star-shaped immortelle. Then the
path became a mere zigzag on the face of the
precipice, and in less than half an hour they reached
the lowest level of the valley. The glowing afternoon
had not yet faded from the uppermost pines,
when they were all dining together in the parlour
of a little inn looking to the Jungfrau. In the
evening my brother wrote letters, while the three
lads strolled about the village. At nine o'clock
they bade each other good night, and went to
their several rooms.

Weary as he was, my brother found it
impossible to sleep. The same unaccountable
melancholy still possessed him, and when at last he
dropped into an uneasy slumber, it was but to
start over and over again from frightful dreams,
faint with a nameless terror. Towards morning,
he fell into a profound sleep, and never woke until
the day was fast advancing towards noon. He
then found, to his regret, that Christien had long
since gone. He had risen before daybreak,
breakfasted by candlelight, and started off in the grey
dawn—"as merry," said the host, "as a fiddler
at a fair."

Stefano and Battisto were still waiting to see
my brother, being charged by Christien with a
friendly farewell message to him, and an invitation
to the wedding. They, too, were asked, and
meant to go; so, my brother agreed to meet them
at Interlaken on the following Tuesday, whence
they might walk to Kandersteg by easy stages,
reaching their destination on the Thursday morning,
in time to go to church with the bridal party.
My brother then bought some of the little Florentine
cameos, wished the two boys every good
fortune, and watched them down the road till he
could see them no longer.

Left now to himself, he wandered out with
his sketch-book, and spent the day in the
upper valley; at sunset, he dined alone in his
chamber, by the light of a single lamp. This meal
despatched, he drew nearer to the fire, took out
a pocket edition of Goethe's Essays on Art, and
promised himself some hours of pleasant reading.
(Ah, how well I know that very book, in its faded
cover, and how often I have heard him describe
that lonely evening!) The night had by this
time set in cold and wet. The damp logs
spluttered on the hearth, and a wailing wind
swept down the valley, bearing the rain in sudden
gusts against the panes. My brother soon found
that to read was impossible. His attention
wandered incessantly. He read the same sentence
over and over again, unconscious of its meaning,
and fell into long trains of thought leading far
into the dim past.

Thus the hours went by, and at eleven o'clock
he heard the doors closing below, and the
household retiring to rest. He determined to yield
no longer to this dreaming apathy. He threw
on fresh logs, trimmed the lamp, and took
several turns about the room. Then he opened
the casement, and suffered the rain to beat against
his face, and the wind to ruffle his hair, as it
ruffled the acacia leaves in the garden below.
Some minutes passed thus, and when, at length,
he closed the window and came back into the room,
his face and hair and all the front of his shirt
were thoroughly saturated. To unstrap his
knapsack and take out a dry shirt was, of course,his
first impulse—to drop the garment, listen eagerly,
and start to his feet, breathless and bewildered,
was the next.

For, borne fitfully upon the outer breeze,
now sweeping past the window, now dying in the
distance, he heard a well-remembered strain of
melody, subtle and silvery as the "sweet airs"
of Prospero's isle, and proceeding unmistakably,
from the musical-box which had, the day before,
accompanied the lunch under the fir-trees of the
Wengern Alp!

Had Christien come back, and was it thus that
he announced his return? If so, where was he?
Under the window? Outside in the corridor?
Sheltering in the porch, and waiting for
admittance? My brother threw open the casement
again, and called him by his name.

"Christien! Is that you?"

All without was intensely silent. He could
hear the last gust of wind and rain moaning
farther and farther away upon its wild course
down the valley, and the pine trees shivering,
like living things.