of a mile up a steep and rough mountain-path from the nearest stream. And there was one refinement in the rude chalet not always present in regions far less removed from the centres of civilization: besides the cloth--so coarse as to be a curiosity--which the woman laid for us over an end of the unscoured table, she put at each of our places, as a matter of course, a fresh napkin of the same rude stuff. I could not sufficiently admire the brave cheerfulness of these simple folk. Many of the villagers were busy gathering their little stock of potatoes, and all had something bright to say about their good fortune in getting them so well grown and safely stored before the frosts. It was the last week in September, and they thought the winter already close at hand. There was, too, in spite of a shrinking from strangers painfully suggestive of tendencies inherited from generations of persecuted ancestors, a degree of intelligence and self-respect often wanting among peasants far more favorably circumstanced. And it seemed to me worthy of remark that in all our walk--notwithstanding the valley's unexampled poverty--we did not encounter a single beggar. Before we left Dourmillouse the "elder" appeared, a stalwart young mountaineer with his gun slung across his shoulder. He had finished his morning's work in some distant field, and was off for a chamois-hunt among the rocks and glaciers. As a relic of our visit he gave us a block of rye bread twenty-two months old, which he chopped off the loaf with a hatchet. We had frequent evidence in the course of our excursion that Pastor Charpiot is a real shepherd to his needy flock. Indeed, he gave to the walk an intimate and peculiar interest quite apart from its historical associations. Here he bade us go slowly on while he looked in upon a sick man, explaining that he had to be doctor as well as minister. Again he asked us to stop and share with him some of the grapes which a stout young peasant-woman was bringing on her donkey from the Durance vineyards, and which had no sweetness save in the good-will that offered them. For all whom we met he had a cheery greeting or an affectionate inquiry that showed familiar acquaintance with their concerns; and occasionally a word or two suggested a truth or hope, aptly illustrated in some passing incident, no matter how trifling or homely.