of a
peculiarly restless and uncomfortable night behind him. It was not until
he had shaved and dressed that he noted the altered character of the
air outside. Although it was not fully daylight yet, he could see the
outlines of the trees and vinerows on the big, snow-clad hill, which
monopolized the prospect from his window, all sharp and clear cut, as if
he were looking at them through an opera-glass. He went at once to the
sitting-room, and thrust the curtains aside from one of the windows.

A miracle had been wrought in the night. The sky overhead was serenely
cloudless; the lake beneath, stirring softly under some faint passing
breeze, revealed its full breadth with crystalline distinctness. Between
sky and water there stretched across the picture a broad, looming,
dimly-defined band of shadow, marked here and there at the top by
little slanting patches of an intensely glowing white. He looked at this
darkling middle distance for a moment or two without comprehension. Then
he turned and hurriedly moved to the door of Julia's room and beat upon
it.

"Get up!" he called through the panels. "Here's your sunrise--here's
your Alpine view. Go to your window and see it!"

A clear voice, not unmirthful, replied: "I've been watching it for half
an hour, thanks. Isn't it glorious?"

He was more fortunate at the opposite door, for Alfred was still
asleep. The young man, upon hearing the news, however, made a toilet of
unexampled brevity, and came breathlessly forth. Thorpe followed him
to the balcony, where he stood collarless and uncombed, with the fresh
morning breeze blowing his hair awry, his lips parted, his eyes staring
with what the uncle felt to be a painful fixedness before him.

Thorpe had seen many mountains in many lands. They did not interest him
very much. He thought, however, that he could see now why people who
had no mountains of their own should get excited about Switzerland. He
understood a number of these sentimental things now, for that matter,
which had been Greek to him three months before. Unreceptive as his
philistinism may have seemed to these delightful youngsters, it was
apparent enough to him that they had taught him a great deal. If he
could not hope to share their ever-bubbling raptures and enthusiasms,
at least he had come to comprehend them after a fashion, and even to
discern sometimes what it was that stirred them.

He watched his nephew now--having first assured himself by a
comprehe