pick for another day. So she now kept with Peter, and the goats
also became more orderly in their behavior, for they were
beginning to smell the plants they loved that grew on the higher
slopes and clambered up now without pause in their anxiety to
reach them. The spot where Peter generally halted for his goats
to pasture and where he took up his quarters for the day lay at
the foot of the high rocks, which were covered for some distance
up by bushes and fir trees, beyond which rose their bare and
rugged summits. On one side of the mountain the rock was split
into deep clefts, and the grandfather had reason to warn Peter of
danger. Having climbed as far as the halting-place, Peter unslung
his wallet and put it carefully in a little hollow of the ground,
for he knew what the wind was like up there and did not want to
see his precious belongings sent rolling down the mountain by a
sudden gust. Then be threw himself at full length on the warm
ground, for he was tired after all his exertions.

Heidi meanwhile had unfastened her apron and rolling it
carefully round the flowers laid it beside Peter's wallet inside
the hollow; she then sat down beside his outstretched figure and
looked about her. The valley lay far below bathed in the morning
sun. In front of her rose a broad snow-field, high against the
dark-blue sky, while to the left was a huge pile of rocks on
either side of which a bare lofty peak, that seemed to pierce
the blue, looked frowningly down upon, her. The child sat without
moving, her eyes taking in the whole scene, and all around was a
great stillness, only broken by soft, light puffs of wind that
swayed the light bells of the blue flowers, and the shining gold
heads of the cistus, and set them nodding merrily on their
slender stems. Peter had fallen asleep after his fatigue and the