David went back at a sign from his mistress, who advanced towards
Wilfrid and Minna.

"Let us go to the falls of the Sieg," she said, expressing one of
those desires which suddenly possess the sick and which the well
hasten to obey.

A thin white mist covered the valleys around the fiord and the sides
of the mountains, whose icy summits, sparkling like stars, pierced the
vapor and gave it the appearance of a moving milky way. The sun was
visible through the haze like a globe of red fire. Though winter still
lingered, puffs of warm air laden with the scent of the birch-trees,
already adorned with their rosy efflorescence, and of the larches,
whose silken tassels were beginning to appear,--breezes tempered by
the incense and the sighs of earth,--gave token of the glorious
Northern spring, the rapid, fleeting joy of that most melancholy of
Natures. The wind was beginning to lift the veil of mist which
half-obscured the gulf. The birds sang. The bark of the trees where the
sun had not yet dried the clinging hoar-frost shone gayly to the eye in
its fantastic wreathings which trickled away in murmuring rivulets as
the warmth reached them. The three friends walked in silence along the
shore. Wilfrid and Minna alone noticed the magic transformation that
was taking place in the monotonous picture of the winter landscape.
Their companion walked in thought, as though a voice were sounding to
her ears in this concert of Nature.

Presently they reached the ledge of rocks through which the Sieg had
forced its way, after escaping from the long avenue cut by its waters
in an undulating line through the forest,--a fluvial pathway flanked