d Madame in the stables, and arranged with her for a carriage at
seven o'clock the next morning.

At the time appointed, M. Paget did not come, and I was obliged to go
and look him up. He proved to me that it was all right, somehow, and
evidently understood that his convenience, not ours, was the thing to be
consulted. The hotel is in a narrow street, and, apparently on that
account, a stray passer-by was caught, and pressed into M. Paget's
service to help to turn the carriage,--a feat accomplished by a bodily
lifting of the hinder part, with its wheels. After-experience showed
that the narrowness of the street had nothing to with it, and we
discovered that the necessity for the manoeuvre was due to a chronic
affection of some portion of the voiture; so that whenever in the course
of the day it became necessary for us to turn round, M. Paget was
constrained to call in foreign help.

The country through which we passed was uninteresting in the extreme,
although we had been told by the landlord that our drive would introduce
us to a succession of natural beauties such as few countries in the
world could show. The line of hills, at the foot of which we expected
our route to lie, looked exceedingly tempting as seen from Pontarlier;
but, to our disappointment, we left the hills and struck across the
plain. About ten or eleven kilometres from Pontarlier, however, the
character of the country changed suddenly, and we found the landlord's
promise in some part fulfilled. Rich meadow-slopes were broken by
solitary trees arranged in Nature's happiest style, and grey precipices
of Jurane grimness and perpendicularity encroached upon the woods and
grass. We were coming near the source of the Loue, M. Paget said, which
it would be necessary for us to visit. He told us that we must leave the
carriage at an _auberge_ on the roadside, and walk to the neighbouring
village of Ouhans, which was inaccessible for voitures, and thence we
should easily find our way to the source. The distance, he declared, was
twenty minutes. The woman at the _auberge_ strongly recommended the
source, but did her best to dissuade us from the glacieres, of which she
said there were two. She had visited them herself, and told her husband,
who had guided her, that there was nothing to see. That, we thought,
proved nothing against the glacieres, and her dulness of appreciation we
were willing to accept without further proof than her personal
appearance. Besides,