"I should like it so much!"--

"Therefore you doubt?"

"Yes. I am afraid of listening just to my own pleasure."

"You shall not," said he, laughing. "Listen to mine. I want to see your eyes open at the Jung Frau, and Mont Blanc."

"My eyes open easily at anything," said Lois, yielding to the laugh;--"they are such ignorant eyes."

"Very wise eyes, on the contrary! for they know a thing when they see it."

"But they have seen so little," said Lois, finding it impossible to get back to a serious demeanour.

"That sole defect in your character, I propose to cure."

"Ah, do not praise me!"

"Why not? I used to rejoice in the remembrance that you were not an angel but human. Do you know the old lines?--

'A creature _not_ too bright and good For human nature's daily food; For transient sorrows, simple wiles, Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles.'

Only 'wiles' you never descend to; 'blame' is not to be thought of; if you forbid praise, what is left to me but the rest of it?"

And truly, what with laughter and some other emotions, tears were not far from Lois's eyes; and how could the kisses be wanting?

"I never heard you talk so before!" she managed to say.

"I have only begun."

"Please come back to order, and sobriety."

"Sobriety is not in order, as your want of it shows."

"Then come back to Switzerland."

"Ah!--I want you to go up the AEggischhorn, and to stand on the Gorner Grat, and to cross a pa.s.s or two; and I want you to see the flowers."

"Are there so many?"

"More than on a western prairie in spring. Most people travel in Switzerland later in the season, and so miss the flowers. You must not miss them."

"What flowers are they?"

"A very great many kinds. I remember the gentians, and the forget-me-nots; but the profusion is wonderful, and exceedingly rich.

They grow just at the edge of the snow, some of them. Then we will linger a while at Zermatt and Chamounix, and a mountain _pension_ here and there, and so slowly work our way over into Italy. It will be too late for Rome; but we will go, if you like it, to Venice; and then, as the heats grow greater, get back into the Tyrol."

"O, Mrs. Barclay had beautiful views from the Tyrol; a few, but very beautiful."

"How do you like my programme?"

"You have not mentioned glaciers."

"Are you' interested in glaciers?"

"_Very_ much."

"You shall see as much of them as you can see safely from terra firma."

"Are they so dangerous?"

"Sometimes."

"But you have crossed them, have you not?"

"Times enough to make me scruple about your doing it."

"I am very sure-footed."

He kissed her hand, and inquired again what she thought of his programme.

"There is no fault to be found with the programme. But--"

"If I add to it the crossing of a glacier?"

"No, no," said Lois, laughing; "do you think I am so insatiable? But--"

"Would you like it all, my darling?"

"Like it? Don't speak of liking," she said, with a quick breath of excitement. "But--"

"Well? But--what?"

"We are not going to live to ourselves?" She said it a little anxiously and eagerly, almost pleadingly.

"I do not mean it," he answered her, with a smile. "But as to this journey my mind is entirely clear. It will take but a few months. And while we are wandering over the mountains, you and I will take our Bibles and study them and our work together. We can study where we stop to rest and where we stop to eat; I know by experience what good times and places those are for other reading; and they cannot be so good for any as for this."

"Oh! how good!" said Lois, giving a little delighted and grateful pressure to the hand in which her own still lay.

"You agree to my plans, then?"

"I agree to--part. What is that?"--for a slight noise was heard in the hall.--"O Philip, get up!--get up!--there is somebody coming!"

Mr. Dillwyn rose now, being bidden on this wise, and stood confronting the doorway, in which presently appeared his sister, Mrs. Burrage. He stood quiet and calm to meet her; while Lois, hidden by the back of the great easy-chair, had a moment to collect herself. He shielded her as much as he could. A swift review of the situation made him resolve for the present to "play dark." He could not trust his sister, that if the truth of the case were suddenly made known to her, she would not by her speech, or manner, or by her silence maybe, do something that would hurt Lois. He would not risk it. Give her time, and she would fit herself to her circ.u.mstances gracefully enough, he knew; and Lois need never be told what had been her sister-in-law's first view of them. So he stood, with an unconcerned face, watching Mrs. Burrage come down the room. And she, it may be said, came slowly, watching him.