From the train which runs along its border the voyager is content to regard it negligently and does not deign to stop. He sees the clearly drawn lines of the wooded mountains that shut it in, and the hollows of the valleys where the white villages half hide themselves like a flock of sheep in a pasture. He catches a hasty glimpse of a little hill planted with trees thrust forth on a promontory into the waters, of a straggling town on the bank, of an island all built up, and in this rapid flight he imagines he has culled the smiling delicacy of this landscape, which indeed stores up and epitomises the whole charm of the Lombardy country: a mixture of grace and harshness. The shore of the lake rounds itself off lazily, but the contours of the hills against the horizon are crisp and well marked, not soft and vaporous as under the paler skies of Switzerland and Savoy. In the evening they seem to sink deep into the clear background. The almost symmetrical undulations of the hills repeat the same forms, exaggerating themselves accordingly as one looks toward the north, so that one feels almost as if they could be measured by the clearly marked stages with which the Novare plain comes up at last against the formidable barrier of the Alps. Orta Novarese is not yet equipped for the reception of travellers, and on that account enjoys its fortunate neglect. A single hotel on the side of the Sacred Mount--Orta is crowned by a little mountain, where twenty chapels, scattered among the trees, illustrate the life and miracles of St. Francis of Assisi--the Hotel Belvedere, from spring until the beginning of winter, receives a limited number of lodgers. But all through the green of the woods, along the lake’s edge, one discovers country houses, where the aristocracy of the province come for rest and recreation. The iron gates are left open, and from well-kept gardens comes a perfume of flowers that is quite delicious after the musty smell of table-d’hôte that vitiates one’s stay at Pollanza or Baveno. Fleeing from the large towns where they had spent the stormy months of winter, Mrs. Frasne and Maurice Roquevillard had installed themselves at the Belvedere in May. They had been tempted to stay on there because they were tired of change, as well as by the moderate prices, so that they found themselves still there at the end of October. An exceptional autumn followed almost slyly in the steps of summer, and but for the shorter days, and a little freshness in the air, or the timid gold that began to touch the foliage, the sun would have inspired unlimited confidence in good weather.