"I liked the mountain girl best of all," thought Lucy. "I wonder
whether I shall ever get among the mountains again. There's a
great stick in the corner that Uncle Joe calls his alpenstock.
I'll go and read the names upon it. They are the names of all
the mountains where he has used it."

She read Mount Blanc, Mount Cenis, the Wengern, and so on; and of
course as she read and sung them over to herself, they lulled her
off into her wonderful dreams, and brought her this time into a
meadow, steep and sloping, but full of flowers, the loveliest
flowers, of all kinds, growing among the long grass that waved
over them. The fresh, clear air was so delicious that she almost
hoped she was back in her dear Tyrol; but the hills were not the
same. She saw upon the slope quantities of cows, goats, and sheep,
feeding just as on the Tyrolese Alps; but beyond was a dark row of
pines, and above, in the sky as it were, rose all round great sharp
points--like clouds for their whiteness, but not in their straight,
jagged outlines. And here and there the deep gray clefts between
seemed to spread into white rivers, or over the ruddy purple of the
half-distance came sharp white lines darting downwards.

As she sat up in the grass and looked about her, a bark startled
her. A dog began to growl, bark, and dance round her, so that she
would have been much frightened if the next moment a voice had not
called him off--"Fie, Brilliant, down; let the little girl alone.
He is good, Madamoiselle, never fear. He helps me keep the cows."

"Who are you, then?"

"I am Maurice, the little herd-boy. I live with my grandmother, and