the building.

"It is damnable to bear malice, and doubly damnable to bear malice against
the dead! Therefore I beg you to take notice that I have quite forgotten
the recent conduct of the deceased in the matter of our public games, as
it becomes an impartial and upright judge to do. Poor Jacques Colis! Ah,
death is awful at any time, but it is tenfold terrible to die in this
sudden manner, posthaste as it were, and that, too, on a path where we
put one foot before the other with so much bodily pain. This is the ninth
visit I have made the Augustines, and I cannot flatter the holy monks on
the subject of their roads, much as I wish them well. Is the reverend
clavier back at his post again?"

"He is, and has been active in taking the usual examinations."

"Activity is his strong property, and he needs be that, Herr Steinbach,
who passeth the life of a mountaineer. The noble Genoese, and my ancient
friend Melchior, and his fair daughter the beautiful Adelheid, and the
equitable Chatelain, thou sayest, are all fairly reposed and comfortable?"

"Herr Bailiff, they have reason to thank God that the late storm and their
mental troubles have done them no harm."

"So--I would these Augustines kept kirschwasser among their liquors!"

Peterchen entered the convent, where his presence alone was wanting to
proceed to business. The mules were housed, the guides received as usual
in the building, and then the preparations for the long-delayed
examinations were seriously commenced.

It has already been mentioned that the fraternity of St. Bernard was of
very ancient origin. It was founded in the year 962, by Bernard de
Menthon, an Augustine canon of Aoste in Piedmont, for the double purposes
of bodily succor and spiritual consolation. The idea of establishing a
religious community in the midst of savage rocks, and at the highest point
trod by the foot of a man, was worthy of Christian self-denial and a
benevolent philanthropy. The experiment appears to have succeeded in a
degree that is commensurate with its noble intention; for centuries have
gone by, civilization has undergone a thousand changes, empires have been
formed and upturned, thrones destroyed, and one-half the world has been
rescued from barbarism, while this piously-founded edifice still remains
in its simple and respectable usefulness where it was first erected, the
refuge of the traveller and a shelter for the poor.

The convent buildings are necessarily vast, bu