'Common,'—said Dane. 'Never be common, if you can help it. Then from G' schlöss we will mount the Grossen Venediger. It is eleven thousand feet high, to be sure, but uncommonly easy to go up; and from the top we shall have a good wilderness view of rocks and ice and snow—and little else, beside sky.' 'I do not see the pleasure in that,' said Mrs. Coles. 'O I do,' said Primrose. 'But Duke, Hazel could not walk half a day, like you.' 'Yes, she could, in the high Alps.' 'It must be delightful!' Primrose said musingly. 'Another time I will take her over the Dobratsch. She can ride up there.' 'Duke, you do use very odd words. What is the Dobratsch?' 'A mountain in Illyria—almost as good as the Rigi.' 'Why not go to the Rigi?' said Mrs. Coles. 'Crowds. But I will go to the Rigi too, if Hazel makes a point of it. The Dobratsch has more variety of scenery than the Rigi. Both give you lakes and glaciers; but from the Dobratsch you have a view of tremendous weatherworn limestone peaks, and riven Dolomites. Then we will visit the Warmbad-Villach.' 'What is that, Duke?' 'A little watering place. You would like it. A warm clear spring breaks forth just at the borders of the forest. It is a nice place to be late in the season. Then there is another walk I want to shew her, in the Rainthal, going from Taufers.' 'It sounds like a guide-book,' said Mrs. Coles chuckling. 'Where is Taufers?' 'That is in the Austrian Tyrol. You go for a couple of hours beside a glacier stream which is almost all the way a broad ribband of white foam. The bed of the brook is so steep and rocky that the water is dashed and shivered into spray, glittering in the sunshine, and wetting you all the same. What do you say to that, Hazel? You like brooks.' Hazel had been deep in the intricacies of a bit of netting; the little foot with the netting-stirrup perched up on a foot cushion, the long needle flying swiftly to and fro. A stir of colour now and then, a curl of the lips, were the only tokens that she heard what went on. She answered sedately. 'They are good society, to follow.' 'And the lakes are not bad,' Dane went on. 'We should go to München of course, to study art; and from there we will take flying runs to the lakes; Ammersee, and Walchensee, and Königsee, and the rest of them.' 'But won't you take her to Mont Blanc and Chamounix, and to see the Matterhorn, where those people were lost?' said Mrs. Coles, whose breath seemed to be taken away. 'Of course. But the mountains are just as good where people have not been lost.' 'Have you been to all these other places already, Duke?' Primrose asked. 'More than once, some of them. I have walked there for weeks with Heinert,' he added, turning to Hazel with again the change of tone. 'And that is your wife's travelling clock!' said Mrs. Coles. 'It seems to me you are betimes about your preparations.' 'Always a good way,' said Dane coolly.