Part 122 (1/2)
”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.”