It seemed a sudden drop, after this preface, to turn to bargaining. The landlord made the break for me, however, when he saw that I had set my mind upon Marcoz and his Finois. It then appeared that Joseph was not his own master, but worked for the real owner of Finois and other mules. The price he would have to ask for such a journey as I proposed was twenty-five francs a day. This would include the services of man and mule, food for the one, and fodder for the other. Without any beating down, I accepted the terms proposed, and the only part of the arrangement left in doubt was the time of starting. It was not eight o'clock, yet already the diligences and private carriages going over the Grand St. Bernard had departed with a jingling of bells and sharp cracking of whips which had first informed me that it was day. With me, it was different, however. Speed was no longer my aim. I would not be in a hurry about arriving anywhere, and when I learned that there were a couple of small towns on the Pass, at either of which I could lie for a night, there seemed no fair excuse for keeping Jack and Molly at Martigny. As I was wondering when they would wake, that I might consult them on the details of my journey, I glanced up and saw Molly, as fresh as if she had been born with the morning, standing on a balcony just over my head. In her hand was a letter, and as she waved a greeting, something came fluttering uncertainly down. I managed to catch this something before it touched earth, and had inadvertently seen that it was an unmounted photograph, probably taken by an amateur correspondent, when Molly leaned over the railing, with an excited cry. "Oh, don't look. Please, _please_ don't look at that photograph!" she exclaimed. "Of course I won't," I answered, slightly hurt. "What do you take me for?" "I know you wouldn't mean to," she answered. "But you might glance involuntarily. You _didn't_ see it, did you?" Suddenly I was tempted to tease her. "Would it be so very dreadful if I did?" "Yes, dreadful," she echoed solemnly. "Don't joke. Do please tell me, one way or the other, if you saw what was in the picture?" "You may set your mind at ease. If it were to save my life, I couldn't tell whether the photograph was of man, woman, boy, girl, or beast; and now I'm holding it face downward." Molly broke into a laugh. "Good!" she exclaimed. "I'm coming to claim my property, and to look at your new acquisitions. I've been criticising them from the window, and I congratulate you." A moment later she was beside me, had taken her mysterious photograph, and hidden it between the pages of a letter, covered with writing in a pretty and singularly individual hand. She explained that a whole budget of "mail" had been forwarded to Martigny, in consequence of a telegram sent to Lucerne, and then, as if forgetting the episode, she applied herself to winning the hearts of the man Joseph and the mule Finois.