Page:Alice Lauder.pdf/233

ungloved fingers, and then at Arthur Campbell, standing a little apart, and remarked in her pretty old-fashioned manner, “Ce beau monsieur is your husband, n’est-ce pas? Perhaps even this is your honeymoon journey?”—“No, oh no. He is only a friend,” Lizzie murmured with crimsoning cheeks. Sister Agnes looked surprised, and there was a moment’s silence, in which she doubtless commended the young couple to the protection of her patron saint; then with French tact she spoke of other matters, but something seemed to trouble the sweet harmonious afternoon, and Lizzie began to look weary and distrait.

“We shall soon come to anchor for the night,” said Campbell, coming up to her later on. “I wonder if there is a road anywhere about here. It looks like the end of the world.”

“Not a road, but a bridle-track. How I wish I were a man! what fun it would be!”

“What would you do, par exemple?”

“I would get a horse here and ride ‘over the hills and far away.’ There is a track leading far into the island, and you can get out on the sea-shore, and find your way to a port. You pass by the great snow-mountains and hear the avalanches thundering down all night. There are some deer in the valleys, too, and they have