e of small towns on the Pass, at either of
which I could lie for a night, there seemed no fair excuse for keeping
Jack and Molly at Martigny.

As I was wondering when they would wake, that I might consult them on
the details of my journey, I glanced up and saw Molly, as fresh as if
she had been born with the morning, standing on a balcony just over my
head. In her hand was a letter, and as she waved a greeting, something
came fluttering uncertainly down. I managed to catch this something
before it touched earth, and had inadvertently seen that it was an
unmounted photograph, probably taken by an amateur correspondent, when
Molly leaned over the railing, with an excited cry. "Oh, don't look.
Please, _please_ don't look at that photograph!" she exclaimed.

"Of course I won't," I answered, slightly hurt. "What do you take me
for?"

"I know you wouldn't mean to," she answered. "But you might glance
involuntarily. You _didn't_ see it, did you?"

Suddenly I was tempted to tease her. "Would it be so very dreadful if
I did?"

"Yes, dreadful," she echoed solemnly. "Don't joke. Do please tell me,
one way or the other, if you saw what was in the picture?"

"You may set your mind at ease. If it were to save my life, I couldn't
tell whether the photograph was of man, woman, boy, girl, or beast;
and now I'm holding it face downward."

Molly broke into a laugh. "Good!" she exclaimed. "I'm coming to claim
my property, and to look at your new acquisitions. I've been
criticising them from the window, and I congratulate you."

A moment later she was beside me, had taken her mysterious photograph,
and hidden it between the pages of a letter, covered with writing in a
pretty and singularly individual hand. She explained that a whole
budget of "mail" had been forwarded to Martigny, in consequence of a
telegram sent to Lucerne, and then, as if forgetting the episode, she
applied herself to winning the hearts of the man Joseph and the mule
Finois.

Presently we were joined by Winston, and I broached the subject of the
start. "The idea is," I said, "to begin as I mean to go on, with a
walk of from twenty to thirty miles a day, according to the scenery
and my inclination. Marcoz thinks that we could pass the night
comfortably enough at a place called Bourg St. Pierre, even if we
didn't get away from here for an hour or so. Then early to-morrow we
would push on for the Hospice, and reach Aosta in the evening."

"It would be a mistake