drifted up ready to take the mountain-climbers, Miss
Hazel suggested (Constance possessed to a large degree the diplomatic
faculty of making other people propose what she herself had decided on)
that she and her niece cross with them. Tony was sulky and Constance
could not forego the pleasure of baiting him further.

They put in at the village, on their way, for the morning mail; Mr.
Wilder wished his paper, even at the risk of not beginning the ascent
before the sun was high. Giuseppe brought back from the post, among other
matters, a letter for Constance. The address was in a dashing, angular
hand that pretty thoroughly covered the envelope. Had she not been so
intent on the writing herself, she would have noted Tony's astonished
stare as he passed it to her.

"Why!" she exclaimed, "here's a letter from Nannie Hilliard, postmarked
Lucerne."

"Lucerne!" Miss Hazel echoed her surprise. "I thought they were to be in
England for the summer?"

"They were--the last I heard." Constance ripped the letter open and read
it aloud.

[Illustration: "Constance ripped the letter open and read it aloud."]

"DEAR CONSTANCE: You'll doubtless be surprised to hear from us in
Switzerland instead of in England, and to learn further, that in
the course of a week, we shall arrive at Valedolmo en route for
the Dolomites. Jerry Junior at the last moment decided to come with
us, and you know what a _man_ is when it comes to European travel.
Instead of taking two months comfortably to England, as Aunt Kate
and I had planned, we did the whole of the British Isles in ten
days, and Holland and France at the same breathless rate.

"Jerry says he holds the record for the Louvre; he struck a
six-mile pace at the entrance, and by looking neither to the right
nor the left he did the whole building in forty-three minutes.

"You can imagine the exhausted state Aunt Kate and I are in after
travelling five weeks with him. We simply struck in Switzerland and
sent him on to Italy alone. I had hoped he would meet us in
Valedolmo, but we have been detained here longer than we expected,
and now he's rushed off again--where to, goodness only knows; we
don't.

"Anyway, Aunt Kate and I shall land in Valedolmo about the end of
the week. I am dying to see you; I have some beautiful news that's
too complicated to write. We've engaged rooms at the Hotel du