lared palaces of rock loomed against the sky
like castles in the air, incalculably far above the green heads and
sloping shoulders of the nearer mountain slopes.

I had thought that green was never so green as in the Valley of Aosta,
but here in St. Bruno's corridor there was a new richness of emerald
in the green carpet and wall hangings, such as I had not yet known. It
was green stamped with living gold, in delicate fleur-de-lis patterns
where the sun wove bright threads; and high above was the ceiling of
lapis lazuli, in pure unclouded blue.

We heard no sound save the voices of unseen woodcutters crying to each
other from mountain slope to mountain slope, the resonant ring of
their axes, striking out wild, echoing notes with a fleeting clang of
steel on pine, and now and again the sudden thunder-crash of a falling
tree, like the roar of a distant avalanche.

By-and-bye we came to the aerial bridge which spans the Guiers Mort,
slender and graceful as the arch of a rainbow, and as we gazed down at
the far, white water hurling itself in sheets of foam past the
detaining rocks, the sharp toot of a horn broke discordantly into the
deep-toned music. A motor car sprang round an abrupt curve and flashed
by, but not so quickly that I did not recognise among the six
occupants the two young Americans of Mont Revard. They passed me as
unseeingly as they did the scenery: for they were talking as fast to
two pretty girls opposite them in the tonneau, as if the girls had not
been talking equally fast to them at the same time. I bore the pair a
grudge, and the sight of them brought back the consciousness of my
injury.

St. Bruno, fortunate in many ways, was a lucky saint to have so
beautiful a bridge named after him. And as we climbed the brown
road--moist with tears wept by the mountains for the banished
monks--it seemed to us that the scenery was always leading up to him,
as a preface leads up to the first chapter of a book. We went through
tunnels as a thread goes through the eye of a needle; we wound round
intricate turns of the road; we came upon pinnacle rocks; and then, at
last, when we least expected the climax of our journey, we dropped
into a great green basin, rimmed with soaring crags. In the midst
stood an enormous building, a vast conglomeration of pointed,
dove-grey roofs and dun-coloured walls, a city of slate and stone
spread over acres of ground and seeming a part of the impressive yet
strangely peaceful wild