the scene in 1779, was still standing. Miss Ruth begged with both eyes;
the aunt wavered, and finally yielded. As a continuance of fine weather
could not be depended on, it was agreed that they should undertake the
ascent the following morning immediately after daybreak. Then the
conversation drooped.

The magnificent scenery through which their route now wound began to
absorb them. Here they crossed a bridge, spanning a purple chasm whose
snake-like thread of water could be heard hissing among the sharp flints
a hundred feet below; now they rattled through the street of a sleepy
village that seemed to have no reason for being except its
picturesqueness; now they were creeping up a tortuous steep gloomed by
menacing crags; and now their way lingered for miles along a precipice,
over the edge of which they could see the spear-like tips of the tall
pines reaching up from the valley.

At the bridge between St. Martin and Sallanches the dazzling silver
peaks of Mont Blanc, rising above the green pasturage of the Forclaz,
abruptly revealed themselves to the travellers, who fancied for the
moment that they were close upon the mountain. It was twelve miles away
in a bee-line. From this point one never loses sight of those vast cones
and tapering aiguilles. A bloom as delicate as that of the ungathered
peach was gradually settling on all the fairy heights.

As the travellers drew nearer to the termination of their journey, they
were less and less inclined to converse. At every turn of the sinuous
road fresh splendors broke upon them. By slow degrees the glaciers
became visible: first those of Gria and Taconay; then the Glacier des
Boissons, thrusting a crook of steel-blue ice far into the valley; and
then--faintly discernible in the distance, and seemingly a hand's