from time to time in low, confidential tones to the four powerful black
horses, whose harnesses were lavishly hung with flaunting chamois-tails
and made merry with innumerable silver bells.

For the last two weeks Lynde had been impatiently looking forward to
this journey. The thought of having an entire day with Miss Denham, on
such terms of intimacy as tacitly establish themselves between persons
travelling together in the same carriage, had softened the prospect of
the final parting at Chamouni; though now he did not intend they should
separate there, unless she cruelly willed it. The nature of Miss
Denham's regard for him Lynde had not fathomed. She had been frank and
friendly with him, as she might have been with a cousin or a person much
older than herself. As he told Flemming, he had never had her a minute
alone. The aunt had always accompanied them on their brief walks and
excursions about Geneva; whenever she had been unable to do so, the
excursion or the walk had been abandoned. Lynde saw, among other
gracious things in this day's ride, a promising opportunity for a tete-
a-tete with Miss Denham. Here and there, along the winding ascents,
would be tempting foot-paths, short pine--shaded cuts across the rocks,
by which the carriage could be intercepted farther on. These five or ten
minutes' walks, always made enchanting by some unlooked-for grove, or
grotto, or cascade, were nearly certain to lure Miss Ruth to her feet.
Then he would have her to himself, for Mrs. Denham seldom walked when
she could avoid it. To make assurance doubly sure Lynde could almost
have wished her one of those distracting headaches from which hitherto
he had suffered so keenly.

For the first few miles the road lay through a succession of villas and
cultivated gardens; indeed, these gardens and villas extend all the way
to Chene, where a thin ribbon of a stream, the Foron, draws the boundary