mother's image was before him, and that the mother's soul looked out from the pensive eyes of Clothilde. He said now no word of marringe, but waited with resignation for the dread twelvemonth to pass away. And he looked with pity upon the strong-hearted Conrad, who, fiercer and more daring than before—as if some quick despair had given courage—scaled the steepest cliffs, and brought back stores of chamois-flesh, of which he laid always a portion at the door of the father of Clothilde.
It was said, too, that the young huntsman was heard at night, casting boulder-stones in the valley, and nerving his arm for the trial of the twelvemonth to come.
The maidens of the village eyed askance the tripping figure of the valley belle; the mothers of the young herdsmen spoke less often of the ten dun cows which fed upon her father's pasture-grounds, and counted less often the fifty kids which trooped at night into her father's folds upon the mountain.
Yet ever Clothilde made her sunset walks to the chapel of Our Lady of the Snow, and ever, in her place in the village church, she prayed, as reverently as before, for Heaven to bless the years of the life of the old man, her father.
If she lived in a spirit-world, it seemed a good spirit-world; and the crystal glory of the glacier, where no foot could go, and where her gaze loved to linger, imaged to her thought the stainless purity of angels. If the curé talked with Clothilde of the heaven where her mother had gone, and where all the good will follow, Clothilde—pointed to the mountains.
Did he talk of worship and the anthems which men sang in the cathedrals of cities?
Clothilde said, "Hark to the avalanche!"
Did he talk of a good spirit, which hovers always near the faithful?
Clothilde pointed upward, where an eagle soared over the glacier, a speck upon the sky.
As the year passed away, mysterious rumors were spread among the villagers; and there were those who said they had seen at eventide, Clothilde talking with a stranger in white, who was like the chal-
