"Over there are no dark fir-trees, with sharp needles, but shining green leaves, and great red flowers; and the mountains are not so high and dark, nor so near, but lie off in the distance, and are purple; and the sky and the lake are all golden and still and warm. There the wind does not feel like this, and one's feet never get full of snow; and one can sit all day long on the sunny ground, and look about." Stineli was quite carried away by this description. She already saw the red flowers and the golden lake before her eyes, and seemed to know exactly how beautiful it all was. "Perhaps you may be able to go there again to see it all, Rico. Do you know the way?" "You must cross the Maloja. I have been there with my father once. He pointed me out the road that goes all the way down the mountain,--first this way, then that, and far below lies the lake; but so far, so far, that it is scarcely possible to go there." "Oh! that is easy enough," said Stineli. "You have to go farther and farther, that is all; and at the end you will surely get there." "But my father told me something else. Do you know, Stineli, when you are travelling and stop at an inn, and eat something and sleep there, then there is something to pay, and you must have money for that." "Oh! we have lots of money," cried Stineli triumphantly. But her companion was not triumphant. "That is exactly as good as nothing. I know that by the affair of the fiddle," he said sadly. "Then it will be better for you to stay at home, Rico. Look! it is beautiful here at home, I am sure." The lad sat thoughtfully silent for a long time, leaning his head on his hand, and his eyebrows brought in a close line down over his eyes. At last he turned again to Stineli, who had been gathering the soft green moss that grew around the spot where they were lying, and of which she made a tiny bed with two pillows and a coverlet. She meant to carry them home to the sick Urschli. "You say I had better stay at home, Stineli; but, do you know, it is just as if I did not know where my home really is." "Oh, dear me! what do you mean?" cried the girl; and in her surprise she threw away a whole handful of moss. Your home is here, of course. It is always home where father and mother"--She stopped suddenly. Rico had no mother, and his father had been away now for a very long time; and the cousin? Stineli never went near that cousin, who had never spoken one pleasant word to her. The child did not know what to say, but it was not natural to her to remain long in uncertainty. Rico had already fallen into one of his reveries, when she grasped him by the arm, and said,-- "I should just like to know something; that is, the name of the lake where it is so lovely." Rico pondered. "I do not know," he said; and felt very much surprised himself as he spoke.