We spend a half hour about the hotels and shops as the twilight comes on, while the carriages wait, down the road.  In an unpretending shop an old lady has just trimmed and lighted her lamp; she peers up through her glasses as we enter, and readily shuffles across the room for her asked-for stock of Pyrenean pressed-flowers.  The dim little store proves a treasury of these articles, and part of our half hour and part of our hoard of francs are spent over the albums spread open by her fumbling fingers.  Then we drive off again into the dusk, join the main road, and run restfully across the valley to end the day’s ride before the lighted windows of our chalet-hotel at Luz.

* * * * *

The trip to Gavarnie can thus be readily made during a day, and it is indisputably one of the finest mountain sights in Europe.  As Lord Bute, (quoted in the Tour Through the Pyrenees,) cried when there, many years ago, in old-time hyperbole, “If I were now at the extremity of India, and suspected the existence of what I see at this moment, I should immediately leave, in order to enjoy and admire it.”  Perhaps this sentiment should merit consideration from, other seekers of noble scenery; it was founded upon a justly sincere enthusiasm.

To-morrow, the Pic de Bergonz shall be our goal.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW.

  “Ich weiss nicht was soll es bedeuten
  Dass ich so traurig bin”

  —­The Lorelei

But the Pic de Bergonz does not so elect.

During the night the weather has another revulsion of feeling.  In the morning it is hysterical, laughing and crying by turns.  We come down-stairs booted and spurred for the ascent, and make directly for the barometer in the doorway.  Alas, it tells but a quavering and uncertain tale, itself evidently undecided, and holding out to others neither discouragement nor hope.  An hour brings no change.  The guide looks sagely toward the clouds, as who should know all weather lore, and candidly admits the doubtful state of the case,—­which is frank, since for him a lost excursion is lost riches.  The sun streaks down fitfully upon the road, and then after a minute the mist sifts over the spot; the mountain-tops appear and disappear among low-lying clouds.  We haunt alternately the roadway and the writing-room, restless and inquisitive; but as the morning wears on, it becomes slowly certain that the Pic de Bergonz has taken the veil irrevocably.

The Monne at Cauterets was within our grasp; we sacrificed its certainty to the uncertainty of the more accessible peak.  In the mountains, as we are thus again shown, carpe diem is a wise blazon.  Still, choosing the Monne would have postponed Gavarnie until to-day and thus have forfeited the clear skies of yesterday’s memorable trip to the Cirque.  It is always feasible to count your consolations rather than your regrets.