"I think you did that because of what mother said, Uncle Fritz. You act as though I were a child, but I am very sure-footed and have been in slippery places before." "No doubt of that, Carl. You are a brave boy, too. But it is very easy to make a misstep in such a place. I shouldn't like it very much if you were down at the bottom of that chasm at this moment. It wouldn't be easy getting you up again, even though it is not deep." Here and there the two travellers met little streams of water flowing along over the surface. The day had been quite warm for this time of the year, the ice had melted a little, and the water was running off in these streams. "O, uncle, look!" cried Carl, as they came near another chasm in the glacier. "Here is another bridge of ice over which we can cross. How clear it is; it looks like glass." By this time the moon was shining in all her glory. "It is like fairy-land," said Carl to himself as he looked back at the glacier which they were just leaving, and then onward to the mountain-tops in the distance, lighted up by the soft yellow light. "The mountains are God's true temples, aren't they?" said Fritz, after a few moments. "But come, my dear, it is getting late. We must move quickly now, even though we are tired. The lights in the village above us are calling, 'Hurry, hurry, good people, before we sleep for the night!'" It had been a long, hard day, but Carl had enjoyed every moment. That night as he lay in the warm bed prepared for him, he thought it all over before he slept. How kind these new friends were, too. Although he and his uncle had reached the village so late, a warm supper was made ready for them at once and everything done for their comfort. Why, the good woman of the house had even taken a hot stone from the hearth and put it into Carl's bed. "I want you to sleep warm, my boy," she said, as she kissed him good night, "and it must be colder up here than in your own home in the valley." The next day Carl had a chance to look around the little village. You would hardly call it a village, either. There were only six or eight houses. Their roofs were weighted down with rocks, like the cottage where Carl had stayed through the summer. It was the only way to be sure of safety, for the winter winds blew fiercely here; Carl knew that. There were long months when the cows must stay in their stable, week after week. "But how neat the barn is!" exclaimed the boy. "It is almost like a sitting-room. Your father has a table and chairs here, as though he stayed here a good deal of the time." "Yes, father likes his cattle so much, he wishes to be with them all he can," answered Marie, who was the only child in the house where Carl and his uncle were staying. "Don't you think our cows are lovely, and did you notice the big black one in the first stall? She is the queen of the herd. Father let me name her, and so I called her 'Marie,' after myself."