And so the sight was seen of these three, arm in arm, passing along the village street in the twilight. Gygi saw them go and raised his blue, peaked cap; and so did Henri Favre, standing in the doorway of his little shop, as he weighed the possible value of the new customer for matches, chocolate, and string--the articles English chiefly bought; and likewise Alfred Sandoz, looking a moment through the window of his cabaret, the Guillaume Tell, saw them go past like shadows towards the woods, and observed to his carter friend across the table, 'They choose queer times for expeditions, these English, _ouah!_' 'It's their climate makes them like that,' put in his wife, a touch of pity in her voice. Her daughter swept the Den and lit the _fourneau_ for _la famille anglaise_ in the mornings, and the mother, knowing a little English, spelt out the weather reports in the _Daily Surprise_ she sometimes brought. Meanwhile the three travellers had crossed the railway line, where Jimbo detained them for a moment's general explanation, and passed the shadow of the sentinel poplar. The cluster of spring leaves rustled faintly on its crest. The village lay behind them now. They turned a moment to look back upon the stretch of vines and fields that spread towards the lake. From the pool of shadow where the houses nestled rose the spire of the church, a strong dark line against the fading sunset. Thin columns of smoke tried to draw it after them. Lights already twinkled on the farther shore, five miles across, and beyond these rose dim white forms of the tremendous ghostly Alps. Dusk slowly brought on darkness. Jimbo began to hum the song of the village he had learned in school-- P'tit Bourcelles sur sa colline De partout a gentille mine; On y pratique avec success L'exploitation du francais, and the moment it was over, his sister burst out with the question that had been buzzing inside her head the whole time-- 'How long are you going to stay?' she said, as they climbed higher along the dusty road. 'Oh, about a week,' he told her, giving the answer already used a dozen times. 'I've just come out for a holiday--first holiday I've had for twenty years. Fancy that! Pretty long time, eh?' They simply didn't believe that; they let it pass--politely. 'London's stuffy, you know, just now,' he added, aware that he was convicted of exaggeration. 'Besides, it's spring.' 'There are millions of flowers here,' Jimbo covered his mistake kindly, 'millions and millions. Aren't there, Monkey?' 'Oh, billions.' 'Of course,' he agreed. 'And more than anywhere else in the whole world.' 'It looks like that,' said Cousin Henry, as proudly as they said it themselves. And they told him how they picked clothes-baskets full of the wild lily of the valley that grew upon the Boudry slopes, hepaticas, periwinkles, jonquils, blue and white violets, as well as countless anemones, and later, the big yellow marguerites.