I went on, and met people who had pitched their dwellings in lofty spots, in order to shelter and entertain tourists. My heart seemed congealed; but I can yet remember where I was when it again thawed into life. Neither the lofty mountains nor the mighty landscape helped me. I sat by the roadside and saw a little bush growing from among the rubble-stones and bearing the blue flowers called snakeweed. And it was there that I became myself again. But look! A bee comes flying towards the bush. She bends down into the open blossoms; she overlooks none of them, from the top to the bottom of the bush, but seems to find nothing, and flies off to another flower. On the next branch she sucks for a long while from every flower-cup. A second bee, apparently a younger one, approaches. She, too, tries flower after flower, and does not know that some one has been there before her. At last, however, she seems to become aware of the fact, and skips two or three of the blossoms until she at last finds one that contains nourishment for her. Here by the wayside, just as up above where human footsteps do not reach, there grows a flower that blooms for itself, and yet bears within it nourishment for another. I do not know how long I may have been seated there, but when I arose I felt that life had returned to me, and that I was in full sympathy with all that was firmly rooted in the earth or freely moving upon its surface. My soul had been closed to the world, but was now again open to the air and the sunshine of existence. From that moment, I felt the spell of the lofty peaks and lovely scenery, and, yielding to it, at last became absorbed in self-communion. I was again living in unconstrained and cheerful intercourse with human beings; and indeed I could not, at times, refrain from showing some of the well-informed Swiss that I met how carelessly and sinfully their countrymen were treating the forests. They complained that the independence of the cantons and the unrestrained liberty of individuals rendered it useless to make any attempt to protect the forests. I made the acquaintance of many worthy men, and that, after all, is always the greatest acquisition. We met the widow of our cousin who had fallen at Königgratz. She was exceedingly gay, was surrounded by a train of admirers, and flaunted in elegant attire. She nodded to us formally and seemed to take no pride in her citizen relatives. I must report another occurrence. On the very last morning, Richard had succeeded in plucking a large bunch of edelweiss. He was coming down the mountain where the wagon was waiting for us. Just then another wagon arrived, and in it was Annette with her maid. Richard offered the flowers to Annette. "Were you thinking of me when you plucked them?" she asked. "To be truthful, I was not." "Thanks for the flowers--and for your honesty." "I did not know, when plucking them, for whom they were; but I am glad to know that now they are yours."