d hearty in
spite of his threescore years and ten, regarded botany as the best rural
sport; his wife, his faithful companion through many years of sunshine
and shadow, who had grown old so naturally that whilst anticipating a
joyful Hereafter she still clothed this present life with the poetic
hues of her girlhood; their daughter, the present narrator; and their
joint friend, another Margaret, who, whilst loyal to her native country,
America, had created for herself, through her talent, her love of true
work and her self-dependence, a bright social and artistic life in
Italy. As for Perugia, our happy quartette had plenty of opportunities
for studying the old masters in the winter months. Now we were anxious
to exchange the oppressive, leaden air of the Italian summer for the
invigorating breezes of the Alps.

Yet how fresh and graceful Italy still looked as we traveled northward
in the second week of June! The affluent and at the same time gentle
sunshine streamed through the broad green leaves of the vines, which
were flung in elegant festoons from tree to tree. It intensified the
bright scarlet of the myriad poppies, which glowed amongst the brilliant
green corn. It lighted up the golden water-lilies lying on the surface
of the slowly-gliding streams, and brought into still greater contrast
the tall amber-colored campanile or the black cypress grove cut in sharp
outline against the diaphanous blue sky. We knew, however, that fever
could lurk in this very luxury of beauty, while health was awaiting us
in the more sombre scenes of gray mountain and green sloping pasture. We
traveled on, therefore, by the quickest and easiest route, and alighting
from the express-train to Munich at the Brixen station on the Brenner
Pass, were shortly deposited, bag and baggage, at that comfortable and
thoroughly German inn, the renowned Elephant.

We prided ourselves on being experienced travelers, and consequently
immediately secured four places in the Eilwagen, which was to start from
the inn at six o'clock the next morning for our destination, Bruneck. We
handed over our luggage to the authorities, partook of supper and then
retired contentedly to rest--in the case of the two Margarets to the
soundest of slumbers--until in the morning we were suddenly awoke, not
by the expected knock of the chambermaid, but by a hurrying to and fro
of feet, and the sound of several eager voices resounding through the
echoing corridors. Fortunately,