er left
shoe to shake out some tiny thing that had got into it and that annoyed
her. It turned out to be a bit of pine-needle. It was pleasant to feel
her foot freed from the hot leather and resting on the thick moss, and
so the other shoe came off too, and was turned upside down and shaken,
as an excuse, for there was nothing in it, and both feet rested in the
moss, side by side. She wished she could take off her stockings, and if
there had been a stream she would have done it, so sure was she that no
one would disturb her, up there amongst the rocks and ever so far from
Pontresina. It would have been delightful to paddle in the cold running
water, for it was much hotter than she had ever supposed that it could
be in such a place.

She took off her straw hat, and fanned herself gently with it, letting
the sunshine fall full upon her thick black hair. She had never owned a
hat in her life till she had been installed in the little house in
Trastevere, and she hated the inconvenient things. What was her hair
for, if it could not protect her head? But a straw hat made a very good
fan. The air was hot and still, and there were none of those thousand
little sounds which she would have heard in the chestnut woods above
Frascati.

A little cry broke the silence, and she turned her head in the direction
whence it came. Then she dropped her hat, sprang to her feet, and ran
forwards, forgetting that she had no shoes on. She saw a figure clinging
to the rocks, where they suddenly narrowed, and she heard the cry again,
desperate with fear and weak with effort. A young girl had evidently
been trying to climb down, when she had lost her footing, and had only
been saved from a bad fall because her grey woollen frock had caught her
upon a projecting point of granite, giving her time to snatch at the
strong twigs of some alp-roses, and to find a very slight projection on
which she could rest the toe of one shoe. She was hanging there with her
face to the rock, eight or ten feet from the ground, which was strewn
with big stones, and she was in such a position that she seemed unable
to turn her head in order to look down.

In ten seconds Regina was standing directly below the terrified girl,
raising herself on tiptoe, and trying to reach her feet with her hands,
to guide them to a hold; but she could not.

"Don't be frightened," Regina said in Italian, which was the only
language she knew.

"I cannot hold on!" answered the girl, try