“The cottage was inhabited by Walter Young, his wife Catherine, and little Raesel, their only daughter.

“I remained three days with them; for the wind, which went down about midnight, had so filled the valley of Neufchatel with mist, that the mountain where I had taken refuge was completely enveloped in it; it was impossible to walk twenty yards from the door without experiencing great difficulty in finding it again.

“Every morning these good people would say, when they saw me buckle on my knapsack—­

“’What are you about, Mr. Hennetius?  You cannot mean to go yet; you will never arrive anywhere.  In the name of Heaven stay here a little longer!’

“And Young would open the door and exclaim—­

“’Look there, sir; you must be tired of your life to risk it among these rocks.  Why, the dove itself would be troubled to find the ark again in such a mist as this.’

“One glance at the mountain side was enough for me to make up my mind to put my stick back again in the corner.

“Walter Young was a man of the old times.  He was nearly sixty; his grand head wore a calm and benevolent expression—­a real Apostle’s head.  His wife, who always wore a black silk cap, pale and thoughtful, resembled him much in disposition.  Their two profiles, as I looked at them defined sharply against the little panes of glass in the chalet’s windows, recalled to my mind those drawings of Albert Durer the sight of which carried me back to the age of faith and the patriarchal manners of the fifteenth century.  The long brown rafters of the ceiling, the deal table, the ashen chairs with the carved backs, the tin drinking-cups, the sideboard with its old-fashioned painted plates and dishes, the crucifix with the Saviour carved in box on an ebony cross, and the worm-eaten clock-case with its many weights and its porcelain dial, completed the illusion.

“But the face of their little daughter Raesel was still more touching.  I think I can see her now, with her flat horsehair cap and watered black silk ribbons, her trim bodice and broad blue sash down to her knees, her little white hands crossed in the attitude of a dreamer, her long fair curls—­all that was graceful, slender, and ethereal in nature.  Yes, I can see Raesel now, sitting in a large leathern arm-chair, close to the blue curtain of the recess at the end of the room, smiling as she listened and meditated.

“Her sweet face had charmed me from the first moment I saw her and I was continually on the point of inquiring why she wore such an habitually melancholy air, why did she hold her pale face down so invariably, and why did she never raise her eyes when spoken to?

“Alas! the poor child had been blind from her birth.

“She had never seen the lake’s vast expanse, nor its blue sheet blending so harmoniously with the sky, the fishermen’s boats which ploughed its surface, the wooded heights which crowned it and cast their quivering reflection on its waters, the rocks covered with moss, the green Alpine plants in their vivid and brilliant colouring; nor had she ever watched the sun set behind the glaciers, nor the long shades of evening draw across the valleys, nor the golden broom, nor the endless heather—­nothing.  None of these things had she ever seen; nothing of what we saw every day from the windows of the chalet.