diligence. I need hardly say that my friend did not betray her trust.

As one goes out from Switzerland towards Italy, the road through the
Via Mala ascends somewhat steeply, and passengers by the diligence may
walk from the inn at Tusis into the gorge, and make their way through
the greater part of the ravine before the vehicle will overtake them.
This, however, Mr. Greene with his wife and daughter had omitted to
do. When the diligence passed me in the defile, the horses trotting
for a few yards over some level portion of the road, I saw a man's
nose pressed close against the glass of the coupe window. I saw more
of his nose than of any other part of his face, but yet I could
perceive that his neck was twisted and his eye upturned, and that he
was making a painful effort to look upwards to the summit of the rocks
from his position inside the carriage.

There was such a roar of wind and waters at the spot that it was not
practicable to speak to him, but I beckoned with my finger and then
pointed to the road, indicating that he should have walked. He
understood me, though I did not at the moment understand his answering
gesture. It was subsequently, when I knew somewhat of his habits,
that he explained to me that on pointing to his open mouth, he had
intended to signify that he would be afraid of sore throat in exposing
himself to the air of that damp and narrow passage.

I got up into the conductor's covered seat at the back of the
diligence, and in this position encountered the drifting snow of the
Splugen. I think it is coldest of all the passes. Near the top of
the pass the diligence stops for awhile, and it is here, if I
remember, that the Austrian officials demand the travellers'
passports. At least in those days they did so. These officials have