is that gun?" said Rollo; "and where was it? Let us look for the
smoke."

So Rollo and Lucia, leaning over the parapet, began to look all about
among the boats and vessels of the lake, and along the opposite shore,
in the direction from which the sound of the report had seemed to come,
and very soon their eyes rested upon a volume of blue smoke which was
ascending from the bows of a little vessel that had just come in, and
was floating off gracefully into the air.

"It is that vessel that has just got in," said Rollo.

"Rollo," said Mrs. Holiday, "look at the mountain."

Rollo turned his eye for a moment towards the mountain. All the lower
part of it was of a cold and deathlike whiteness, while the tip of the
summit was glowing as if it had been on fire. He was, however, too much
interested in the smoke of the gun to look long at the mountain.

"Hark!" said he to Lucia; "let us see if they will not fire again."

They did not fire again; and just as Rollo began to give up expecting
that they would, his attention, as well as that of Lucia, was attracted
to a little child who was playing with a small hammer in the gravel not
far from where they were standing. The mother of the child was sitting
on a bench near by, knitting. The hammer was small, and the claw of it
was straight and flat. The child was using it for a hoe, to dig a hole
in the gravel.

"Now," said Rollo, "if I could find a shingle any where about here, I
would make that child a shovel to dig with."

Rollo looked about, but there was nothing like a shingle to be seen.

In a few minutes his father called him.

"Rollo," said he, "we are going back. Mont Blanc has gone out. See!"

Rollo looked. He saw that the last lingering rays of the sun had gone
from the summit of the mountain, though they still gilded a small
rounded cloud that floated just above it in the sky.

"Yes, sir," said Rollo. "I'll go and call the boat."

"We are not going back in the boat," said Mr. Holiday; "we have
concluded to walk round by land, and over the bridge. It will be better
for Lucia to go with us; but you may do as you please. You may walk with
us, or go in the boat with the boatman."

Rollo at first thought that he should prefer to go in the boat; but he
finally concluded to accompany his father and mother. So the whole party
returned together by a pleasant road which led through a village by the
shore.

When they came out to the quay they heard a band of music pla