red, and has been greatly interested.'

'New to mountains, perhaps?' said the insinuating traveller.

'New to--ha--to mountains,' said the Chief.

'But you are familiar with them, sir?' the insinuating traveller
assumed.

'I am--hum--tolerably familiar. Not of late years. Not of late years,'
replied the Chief, with a flourish of his hand.

The insinuating traveller, acknowledging the flourish with an
inclination of his head, passed from the Chief to the second young lady,
who had not yet been referred to otherwise than as one of the ladies in
whose behalf he felt so sensitive an interest.

He hoped she was not incommoded by the fatigues of the day.

'Incommoded, certainly,' returned the young lady, 'but not tired.'

The insinuating traveller complimented her on the justice of the
distinction. It was what he had meant to say. Every lady must doubtless
be incommoded by having to do with that proverbially unaccommodating
animal, the mule.

'We have had, of course,' said the young lady, who was rather reserved
and haughty, 'to leave the carriages and fourgon at Martigny. And the
impossibility of bringing anything that one wants to this inaccessible
place, and the necessity of leaving every comfort behind, is not
convenient.'

'A savage place indeed,' said the insinuating traveller.

The elderly lady, who was a model of accurate dressing, and whose manner
was perfect, considered as a piece of machinery, here interposed a
remark in a low soft voice.

'But, like other inconvenient places,' she observed, 'it must be seen.
As a place much spoken of, it is necessary to see it.'

'O! I have not the least objection to seeing it, I assure you, Mrs
General,' returned the other, carelessly.

'You, madam,' said the insinuating traveller, 'have visited this spot
before?' 'Yes,' returned Mrs General. 'I have been here before. Let me
commend you, my dear,' to the former young lady, 'to shade your face
from the hot wood, after exposure to the mountain air and snow. You,
too, my dear,' to the other and younger lady, who immediately did so;
while the former merely said, 'Thank you, Mrs General, I am Perfectly
comfortable, and prefer remaining as I am.'

The brother, who had left his chair to open a piano that stood in
the room, and who had whistled into it and shut it up again, now came
strolling back to the fire with his glass in his eye. He was dressed in
the very fullest and completest travelling trim. The world seemed h