We arrived late at St. Moritz, and the little German, on a very fraternal footing, was still talking as the party descended from the interieur.  He spoke of the butterflies the day before in Pontresina, and he laughed with delight as he recounted.

“Vorty maybe der vas, vifty der vas, mit der diligence vlying along; und der brittiest of all I catch; he vill come at my nose”

CHAPTER XXIV.

Leaving out the scenery—­the Senator declares that nothing spoils a book of travels like scenery—­the impressions of St. Moritz which remain with me have something of the quality, for me, of the illustrations in a French novel.  I like to consult them; they are so crisp and daintily defined and isolated and individual.  Yet I can only write about an upper class German mamma eating brodchen and honey with three fair square daughters, young, younger, youngest, and not a flaxen hair mislaid among them, and the intelligent accuracy with which they looked out of the window and said that it was a horse, the horse was lame, and it was a pity to drive a lame horse.  Or about the two American ladies from the south, creeping, wrapped up in sealskins, along the still white road from the Hof to the Bad, and saying one to the other, “Isn’t it nice to feel the sun on yo’ back?” Or about the curio shops on the ridge where the politest little Frenchwomen endeavour to persuade you that you have come to the very top of the Engadine for the purpose of buying Japanese candlesticks and Italian scarves to carry down again.  It was all so clear and sharp and still at St. Moritz; everything drew a double significance from its height and its loneliness.  But, as poppa says, a great deal of trouble would be saved if people who feel that they can’t describe things would be willing to consider the alternative of leaving them alone; and I will only dwell on St. Moritz long enough to say that it nearly shattered one of Mr. Mafferton’s most cherished principles.  Never in his life before, he said, had he felt inclined to take warm water in his bath in the morning.  He made a note of the temperature of his tub to send to the Times.  “You never can tell,” he said, “the effect these little things may have.”  I was beginning to be accustomed to the effect they had on me.

Before we got to Coire the cool rushing night had come and the glaciers had blotted themselves out.  I find a mere note against Coire to the effect that it often rains when you arrive there, and also that it is a place in which you may count on sleeping particularly sound if you come by diligence; but there is no reason why I should not mention that it was under the sway of the Dukes of Swabia until 1268, as momma wishes me to do so.  We took the train there for Constance, and between Coire and Constance, on the Bodensee, occurred Rorshach and Romanshorn; but we didn’t get out, and, as momma says, there was nothing in the