thing is so prettily done in truth, that not the sternest taste could
be offended. Meanwhile another party of night-wanderers, attracted by
our mirth, break in. More _Prosits_ and clinked glasses follow;
and with a fair good-morning to our hostess, we retire.

It is too late to think of bed. 'The quincunx of heaven,' as Sir
Thomas Browne phrased it on a dissimilar occasion, 'runs low.... The
huntsmen are up in America; and not in America only, for the huntsmen,
if there are any this night in Graubünden, have long been out upon the
snow, and the stable-lads are dragging the sledges from their sheds
to carry down the mails to Landquart. We meet the porters from the
various hotels, bringing letter-bags and luggage to the post. It is
time to turn in and take a cup of black coffee against the rising sun.

IX

Some nights, even in Davos, are spent, even by an invalid, in bed.
A leaflet, therefore, of 'Sleep-chasings' may not inappropriately
be flung, as envoy to so many wanderings on foot and sledge upon the
winter snows.

The first is a confused medley of things familiar and things strange.
I have been dreaming of far-away old German towns, with gabled houses
deep in snow; dreaming of châlets in forgotten Alpine glens, where
wood-cutters come plunging into sleepy light from gloom, and sinking
down beside the stove to shake the drift from their rough shoulders;
dreaming of vast veils of icicles upon the gaunt black rocks in places
where no foot of man will pass, and where the snow is weaving eyebrows
over the ledges of grey whirlwind-beaten precipices; dreaming
of Venice, forlorn beneath the windy drip of rain, the gas lamps