n better of our sex. If you will, you shall be
our guide down to Alleheiligen, where we've been staying at the inn
since last night. Besides all that, if you wish to be _very_ good, you
may carry our cloaks and ruecksacks, which seem so heavy to us, but
will be nothing for your strong shoulders."

The face of the chamois hunter changed and changed again with such
amused appreciation of her demands, that Virginia turned her head
away, lest she should laugh, and thus let him guess that she held the
key to the inner situation.

His willingness to become a cowherd, and now a beast of burden for the
foreign lady he had seen, and her friend whom he had not seen, was
indubitably genuine. He was pleased with the adventure--if not as
pleased as his initiated companion. For the next few hours the hunter
was free, it seemed. He said that he had been out since early dawn,
and had had good luck. Later, he had returned to the hut for a meal
and a rest, while his friends went down to the village on business
which concerned them all. As they had not come back, they were
probably amusing themselves, and when he had given the ladies all the
assistance in his power, he would join them.

The way down was easy to Virginia, with his hand to help her when it
was needed, and she had never been so happy in her twenty years. But,
after all, she asked herself, as they neared the place where she had
left Miss Portman, what had she accomplished? What impression was she
leaving? Would this radiant morning of adventure do her good or harm
with Leopold when Miss Mowbray should meet him later, in some
conventional way, through letters of introduction to Court dignitaries
at Kronburg?

While she wondered, his voice broke into her questionings.

"I hope, gna' Fraeulein," the chamois hunter was saying, almost shyly
and as if by an effort, "that you won't go away from our country
thinking that we Rhaetians are so cold of heart and blood as you've
seemed to fancy. We men of the mountains may be different from others
you have seen, but we're not more cold. The torrent of our blood may
sleep for a season under ice, but when the spring comes--as it
must--and the ice melts, then the torrent gushes forth the more hotly
because it has not spent its strength before."

"I shall remember your words," said the Princess, "for--my journal of
Rhaetia. And now, here's my poor friend. I shall have to make her a
thousand excuses."

For her journal of Rhaetia! For