he dark, and to have changed into quite another creature.

"Oh, Padre, do come and look at this absurd dog! It can dance on its
hind legs."

He was as much absorbed in the dog and its accomplishments as he
had been in the after-glow. The woman of the chalet, red-faced and
white-aproned, with sturdy arms akimbo, stood by smiling, while he put
the animal through its tricks. "One can see there's not much on his mind
if he can carry on that way," she said in patois to her daughter. "And
what a handsome lad!"

Arthur coloured like a schoolgirl, and the woman, seeing that he had
understood, went away laughing at his confusion. At supper he talked
of nothing but plans for excursions, mountain ascents, and botanizing
expeditions. Evidently his dreamy fancies had not interfered with either
his spirits or his appetite.

When Montanelli awoke the next morning Arthur had disappeared. He had
started before daybreak for the higher pastures "to help Gaspard drive
up the goats."

Breakfast had not long been on the table, however, when he came tearing
into the room, hatless, with a tiny peasant girl of three years old
perched on his shoulder, and a great bunch of wild flowers in his hand.

Montanelli looked up, smiling. This was a curious contrast to the grave
and silent Arthur of Pisa or Leghorn.

"Where have you been, you madcap? Scampering all over the mountains
without any breakfast?"

"Oh, Padre, it was so jolly! The mountains look perfectly glorious at
sunrise; and the dew is so thick! Just look!"

He lifted for inspection a wet and muddy boot.

"We took some bread and cheese with us, and got some goat's milk up
there on the pasture; oh, it was nasty! But I'm hungry again, now; and I
want something for this little person, too. Annette, won't you have some
honey?"

He had sat down with the child on his knee, and was helping her to put
the flowers in order.

"No, no!" Montanelli interposed. "I can't have you catching cold. Run
and change your wet things. Come to me, Annette. Where did you pick her
up?"

"At the top of the village. She belongs to the man we saw yesterday--the
man that cobbles the commune's boots. Hasn't she lovely eyes? She's got
a tortoise in her pocket, and she calls it 'Caroline.'"

When Arthur had changed his wet socks and came down to breakfast he
found the child seated on the Padre's knee, chattering volubly to him
about her tortoise, which she was holding upside down in a chubby hand,
that "