A kiss, at a dance, was all they could say in their gossipping, but he
had kissed Annette, and she was by no means the flower of his heart.

Down near Bex, between the great walnut trees, close by a rapid little
stream, dwelt the rich miller. The dwelling-house was a large
three-storied building, with little towers covered with wood and
coated with sheets of lead, which shone in the sunshine and in the
moonshine; the largest tower had for a weather-cock a bright arrow
which pierced an apple and which was intended to represent the apple
shot by Tell. The mill looked neat and comfortable, so that it was
really worth describing and drawing, but the miller's daughter could
neither be described nor drawn, at least so said Rudy. Yet she was
imprinted in his heart, and her eyes acted as a fire-brand upon it,
and this had happened suddenly and unexpectedly. The most wonderful
part of all was, that the miller's daughter, the pretty Babette,
thought not of him, for she and Rudy had never even spoken two words
with each other.

The miller was rich, and riches placed her much too high to be
approached; "but no one," said Rudy to himself, "is placed so high as
to be unapproachable; one must climb and one does not fall, when one
does not think of it." _This_ knowledge he had brought from home with
him.

Now it so happened that Rudy had business at Bex and it was quite a
journey there, for the railroad was not completed. The broad valley of
Valais stretches itself from the glaciers of the Rhone, under the foot
of the Simplon-mountain, between many varying mountain-heights, with
its mighty river, the Rhone, which often swells and destroys
everything, overflooding fields and roads. The valley makes a bend,