ut smoking his big pipe, looking despondent in the
extreme; while the others spent the morning chipping the stones in
search of minerals that might prove interesting, and of the various
Alpine plants that luxuriated in the sheltered corners and ravines
facing the south.

They had been collecting for some little time, when Saxe suddenly
exclaimed--

"Well, I am disappointed!"

"What, at not going on some wild expedition to-day?"

"No: with these stones and flowers."

"Why?" said Dale.

"Because there's nothing fresh. I've seen plants like that in Cornwall,
and limestone like that in Yorkshire."

"Not exactly like it, boy; say similar."

"Well, granite and limestone, then."

"So you would, my lad, all over the world--Asia, Africa or America."

"But I expected something so different; and I thought we were going to
get magnificent great crystals, and I haven't seen any yet."

"Did you expect to see them tumbling about anywhere on the mountain
side, sir?"

"I thought they would be plentiful."

"I did not. I fully expected that we should have a good deal of
difficulty in finding them. If they were easily found, they would be
common and of no value. Wait a bit, and I dare say we shall discover a
crystal cavern yet."

"Well, then, the flowers and moss: I expected to find all kinds of fresh
things."

"Did you?"

"Yes, of course--all foreign. Why, look at those! I've seen lots of
them at home in gardens."

"Gentians? Oh yes."

"And that patch of old monkshood," Saxe continued, pointing to a slope
dotted with the dark blue flowers of the aconite. "Why, you can see
that in nearly every cottage garden at home. Here's another plant,
too--I don't know its name."

"Centaurea."

"You can see that everywhere; and these bluebell-harebell-campanula
things, and the dandelion blossoms, and the whortleberry and hogweed and
wild parsley stuff: you see them all at home."

"Anything else?"

"Oh yes: the fir trees down below, and the ash and birch and oak and
willow, and all the rest of it. I thought all the trees and flowers
would be foreign; and there's nothing strange about them anywhere, only
that they grow close to the ice."

"Humph!" ejaculated Dale, as he pressed an orange hawkweed between two
pieces of paper; "has it never occurred to your wise young head that
these things are common at home because they have been brought from
places like this?"

"Eh?"

"Have you not heard about Alpine plants