Poor Florio heard this speech with consternation.  He had never in all his life known one flower from another.  Where, when, how could he go?  And if he went, how should he escape Fuss?  These thoughts made the poor child falter and grow pale.  It would have been so much easier to say he could not do it, and have done with the matter; but the remembrance of his horrible slavery, and the thought that Florella believed in his ability to aid her, stimulated his courage, and he said,

“I know nothing of flowers, dear lady; I am a very ignorant fellow; but if you will direct me, and tell me where to go, I am ready to try.”

“Spoken well, my lad,” said the fairy.  “I do not expect impossibilities. We are the only ones who can do what seems impossible to man.  The Edelweiss is a mountain flower, growing on the highest Alps, and many a man has lost his life striving to pluck it for one he loved.  It is much esteemed for its rarity, and because of the often great difficulty of getting it.  See, here is a dried blossom;” and she put in his hand a small white flower like an immortelle, though Florio thought that it looked as if it were made of flannel, it was so soft and woolly.

“This you must keep; see, I will put it in this case of birch-bark, and you had better place it in your bosom.  Now I must tell you about the journey.  To leave Fussioldfuri immediately might make the task more difficult.  She is about starting for the mountains, and if you keep with her a while longer you will be able to find the place you need much sooner than if you went alone.  But when you reach Geneva you are to leave her.  Can you remember that?”

“Oh yes, the rhyme will help me: 

  “’When I get to Geneva,
  Then I must leave her.’”

“Exactly; and then you are to seek the Edelweiss, and when you have gathered the seeds you are to meet me here in this forest, whether it be winter or whether it be summer.  Adieu.”

The fairy vanished, and with her went her band—­nodding, waving, and kissing their finger-tips.

Oh, how dreary the woods seemed without the little troop!  The wind sighed in the pines, and the moonlight cast fearful shadows from the gnarled and knotty boughs.

Florio rose with a sigh and stretched his limbs, wondering if it was worth while to try and do the fairy’s bidding when he had to go back to hear the dreaded voice of old Fuss.  Then he made sure of the birch-bark case, and again with the aid of the fire-flies found the road.  Fuss was sound asleep still when he laid himself down on his bundle of straw in the farthest corner of the cavern.  One thing he did not notice, and that was the young fox whose bushy tail he had touched going into the woods.  It had followed him home, and crept in under the straw beside him.

CHAPTER II

High up in the Swiss mountains a storm was brewing.  On their cloud-capped summits nothing could be seen but snow—­dazzling, blinding white snow, and wreaths of vapor which congealed as it fell.  All day the people of the hamlets had been preparing for the visitor, knowing full well that they should be housed for weeks after its descent, and as Christmas was approaching, it was needful that much should be done.