Bulletins came with tolerable frequency from Ratzes, with all good accounts of mother and child, and a particular description of little Michael's beauties; but it was only too soon announced that snow was falling, and this was soon followed by another letter saying that consultation with the best authorities within reach had decided that unless the weather were extraordinarily mild, the journey, after November set in, was not to be ventured by Lady Northmoor or so young a child. There would be perils for any one, even the postmen and the guides, and if it were mild in one valley it might only render it more dangerous over the next Alp. Still Mrs. Bury, a practised and enterprising mountaineer, might have attempted it; but though Mary was rapidly recovering and the language was no longer utterly impracticable, the good lady could not bear to desert her charges, or to think what might happen to them, if left alone, in case of illness or accident, so she devoted herself to them and to her studies of ice and snow, and wrote word to her family that they were to think of her as hibernating till Easter, if not Whitsuntide. CHAPTER XXII OUT OF JOINT Constance had, of course, to spend her Christmas holidays at home, where she had not been for nine months. Her brother met her at the London terminus to go down with her, and there, to her great joy, she also saw Rose Rollstone on the platform. Herbert, whose dignity had first prompted him to seek a smoking carriage apart from his sister, thereupon decided to lay it aside and enter with them, looking rather scornful at the girls' mutual endearments. 'Come, Conny, Miss Rollstone has had enough of that,' he said, 'and here are a lot going to get in. Oh my, the cads! I shall have to get into the smoking carriage after all.' 'No, don't. Sit opposite and we shall do very well.' Then came the exchange of news, and--'You've heard, of course, Rosie?' 'I should think I had,' then an anxious glance at Herbert, who answered-- 'Oh yes, mother and Ida have been tearing their hair ever since, but it is all rot! The governor's very welcome to the poor little beggar!' 'Oh, that's right! That's very noble of you, Herbert,' said both the girls in a breath. 'Well, you see, old Frank is good to live these thirty or forty years yet, and what was the good of having to wait? Better have done with it at once, I say, and he has written me a stunning jolly letter.' 'Oh, I was sure he would!' cried Constance. 'I'm to go on just the same, and he won't cut off my allowance,' pursued Herbert. 'It is just as my papa says,' put in Rose, 'he is always the gentleman. And you'll be in the army still?' 'When I've got through my exams; but they are no joke, Miss Rose, I can tell you. It is Conny there that likes to sap. What have you been doing this time, little one?'