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"I know the road well," said she, "my thoughts are with me; yours are beneath in the valley; here on high, one must think on the Ice-Maiden, for they say she is not well disposed to mankind!" "I do not fear her," said Rudy, "she was forced to let me go when I was a child, so I suppose I can slip away from her now that I am older!"

Now the rain streamed down. "Where can Rudy and Babette be in this frightful weather!" said the miller. Babette sat with folded hands, with her head in her lap, mute with sorrow, with screaming and bewailing. "In the deep water," said she to herself, "he is as far down as the glaciers!"

Rudy often reached the top of the mountain before the sunrise, and there inhaled his morning draught of the fresh, invigorating mountain air, God's own gift, which men call the sweet fragrance of plant and herb on the mountain-side, and the mint and wild thyme in the valleys. The overhanging clouds absorb all heaviness from the air, and the winds convey them away over the pine-tree summits.

He never played with the other children, and was not seen with them, unless his grandfather sent him down to sell his curious workmanship. Rudy did not much like trade; he loved to climb the mountains, or to sit by his grandfather and listen to his tales of olden times, or of the people in Meyringen, the place of his birth.

Babette was just thinking of preparing some trout to set before him. She understood well how to garnish the dish with parsley, and make it look quite tempting. Rudy thought all this quite unnecessary. What did the Englishman want there? What was he about? Why should he be entertained, and waited upon by Babette? Rudy was jealous, and that made Babette happy.

These were glad tidings for Rudy, fortune smiled upon him, as it always does on those that rely upon themselves and think upon the saying: "Our Lord gives us nuts, but he does not crack them for us!" Rudy made himself quite at home with the miller's relations; they drank the health of the best marksman. Babette knocked her glass against his and Rudy gave thanks for the honour shown him.

"You bring princely things into the house!" said the old foster-mother, her singular eagle-eyes glistened and she made strange and hasty motions with her lean neck. "Fortune is with you, Rudy, I must kiss you, my sweet boy!" Rudy allowed himself to be kissed, but one could read in his countenance, that he but submitted to circumstances and to little household miseries.

They brought him greetings from his grandfather's house, even from two hens, the only birds of the household; but Rudy was not intimate with them. Although so young and such a little fellow, Rudy had travelled a great deal. He was born in the canton of Valais, and brought to his grandfather over the mountains.

It is not easy to keep such secrets; they are like sand in a sieve; they slip out. It was therefore soon known that Rudy, so brave and so good as he was, had kissed some one while dancing, and yet he had never kissed her who was dearest to him. "Ah, ah," said an old hunter, "he has kissed Annette, has he? he has begun with A, and I suppose he will kiss through the whole alphabet."

This was Ajola's farewell speech, and Rudy threw his arms round the dog's neck and kissed his cold nose. Then he took the cat in his arms, but he struggled to get free. "You are getting too strong for me," he said; "but I will not use my claws against you. Clamber away over the mountains; it was I who taught you to climb. Do not fancy you are going to fall, and you will be quite safe."