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Her room commanded exquisite views of mountain-slope and valley, and even the fact that the imps' bedroom adjoined mine gave me comfort, for I thought of the pleasure of contemplating them while they were asleep, and beyond the power of tormenting their deluded uncle. At the supper-table Budge and Toddie appeared cleanly clothed in their rightful faces.

No gypsy prank had thrust those tiny hoops of gold through the ears; no prairie winds had beaten that skin into wrinkled leather; nor had snow-drift and mountain-slope put in his walk that reminiscent roll. And in those eyes, when they looked at me, I saw the unmistakable sun-wash of the sea.

Often one sees them suddenly when least expected, nestling in a little depression high up some mountain-slope far away, the little dark-green area looking almost black in contrast with the whitish color of the hills.

"It's all nonsense, after all," he thought. "Come," said Sina in a whisper that sounded like a sigh. Solemnly, as if in their souls they bore away with them all the chanting, and the prayers, the sighs and mystic lights, they went out across the court-yard, side by side, and passed through the little door leading to the mountain-slope. Here there was no living soul.

Then the hill grows green as if by a sudden miracle, and the bluebell, the dandelion, the buttercup, the dog-daisy, the wild rose, the raspberry and the strawberry spring up in lavish abundance, by every brook, on every hillock, on every mountain-slope; then hundreds of insects hum in the grass as in a tropical land; then cows, horses, and sheep are driven up the hills and the mountain-sides, while the Fin from the highlands comes down into the valley with his reindeer and waters them in the river; then the cloudberry moors lie reddening for many a mile inland; then there is quiet, sunny peace in every cottage, where the fisherman is now sitting at home with his family, putting his tackle in order for the winter fishing; for in Nordland the summer is more beautiful than in any other place, and there is an idyllic gladness and peace over Nature, which is to be found nowhere else.

It came close to us, and then turned, and as rapidly as it came fled away through the forest, and we lost the unearthly noise far up the mountain-slope. "What was that, Phelps? "we cried out.

He hammered and filed from morning till night; and she must now be making her lace. Time pushed past, divided into even days, along a smooth road that led down the mountain-slope of summer. The leaves fell from the geraniums and the phlox. The neatly-cut-out paper fly-catcher was put away and the lamp hung up in its place.

Then, marching inland as Cortez had done more than three centuries before, the American army, about twelve thousand strong, soon began to ascend the mountain-slope leading from the torrid sea-level plain to the high table-land of the old Aztec realm.

There was nothing to do but to keep on; and on she went, still to the north, with the noise of the pack behind her. In five minutes more she had passed into a hillside clearing. Cows and young steers were grazing there. She heard a tinkle of bells. Below her, down the mountain-slope, were other clearings, broken by patches of woods.

At the end of a couple of hours, though, when they paused to rest and began refreshing themselves with some fruit similar to a large nut, but whose interior contained a couple of kernels imbedded in custard, they found themselves quite upon a hill, with a valley dipping down below along which the streamlet came, and beyond these the mountain-slope rose, so that they had a good view of the cone, with the film of cloud still rising, but looking almost transparent in the bright sunrise.