green skirt, and a grey-green velvety hat, small, with one
black-cock's feather. Why could not people always wear such nice things,
and be as splendid-looking! And he said:

"You do look jolly, Mrs. Stormer!"

She did not answer for so long that he wondered if it had been rude to
say that. But she DID look so strong, and swift, and happy-looking.

Down the hill, through a wood of larch-trees, to the river, and across
the bridge, to mount at once by a path through hay-fields. How could old
Stormer stay in bed on such a morning! The peasant girls in their blue
linen skirts were already gathering into bundles what the men had
scythed. One, raking at the edge of a field, paused and shyly nodded to
them. She had the face of a Madonna, very calm and grave and sweet, with
delicate arched brows--a face it was pure pleasure to see. The boy
looked back at her. Everything to him, who had never been out of England
before, seemed strange and glamorous. The chalets, with their long wide
burnt-brown wooden balconies and low-hanging eaves jutting far beyond the
walls; these bright dresses of the peasant women; the friendly little
cream-coloured cows, with blunt, smoke-grey muzzles. Even the feel in
the air was new, that delicious crisp burning warmth that lay so lightly
as it were on the surface of frozen stillness; and the special sweetness
of all places at the foot of mountains--scent of pine-gum, burning
larch-wood, and all the meadow flowers and grasses. But newest of all
was the feeling within him--a sort of pride, a sense of importance, a
queer exhilaration at being alone with her, chosen companion of one so
beautiful.

They passed all the other pilgrims bound the same way--stout square
Germans with their coats slung through straps, who trailed behind them
heavy alpenstocks, carried greenish bags, and marched stolidly at a pace
that never varied, growling, as Anna and the boy went by: "Aber eilen ist
nichts!"

But those two could not go fast enough to keep pace with their spirits.
This was no real climb--just a training walk to the top of the Nuvolau;
and they were up before noon, and soon again descending, very hungry.
When they entered the little dining-room of the Cinque Torre Hutte, they
found it occupied by a party of English people, eating omelettes, who
looked at Anna with faint signs of recognition, but did not cease talking
in voices that all had a certain half-languid precision, a slight but
brisk pinchin