I am not going to tell lies about it, and say that she blushed. On the contrary, she turned a little bit pale, but smiled brightly, and said, "Yes, with pleasure." So she went to fetch her bonnet, and the old gentleman opposite followed her with his eyes, and said he wished he was a young fellow. "This is the shortest way," she said, as we came to the corner. "Then we won't take it," said I. When we reached the school-room door the damask roses were so much heightened in colour by exercise that I felt sure it would be useful to her to take a stroll like this every morning. I have been low-spirited and listless lately. It is coffee, I think. I notice that I tell my secrets too easily when I am downhearted. There are inscriptions on our hearts never seen except at dead low-tide. And there is a woman's footstep on the sand at the side of my deepest ocean-buried inscription. I am not going to say which I like best, the seashore or the mountains. The one where your place is, is the best for you; but this difference there is--you can domesticate mountains. The sea is feline. It licks your feet, its huge flanks purr very pleasantly for you; but it will crack your bones and eat you for all that, and wipe the crimsoned foam from its jaws as if nothing had happened. The mountains have a grand, stupid, lovable tranquillity; the sea has a fascinating, treacherous intelligence. "If I thought I should ever see the Alps!" said the schoolmistress. "Perhaps you might some time or other," I said. "It is not very likely," she answered. _Tableau._ Chamouni. Mont Blanc in full view. Figures in the foreground, two of them standing apart; one of them a gentleman--oh--ah--yes!--the other a lady, leaning on his shoulder. (The reader will understand this was an internal, private, subjective diorama, seen for one instant on the background of my own consciousness.) * * * * * I can't say just how many walks she and I had taken together. I found the effect of going out every morning was decidedly favourable on her health. I am afraid I did the greater part of the talking. Better too few words from the woman we love than too many; while she is silent, Nature is working for her; while she talks she works for herself. Love is sparingly soluble in the words of men, therefore they speak much of it; but one syllable of woman's speech can dissolve more of it than a man's heart can hold. _Nature's Patient Advance_