“It may be a mere fancy of mine,” returned Lynde.  “However, we have similar geological formations in the mountainous sections of New England; the same uncompromising Gothic sort of pines; the same wintry bleakness that leaves its impress even on the midsummer.  A body of water tumbling through a gorge in New Hampshire must be much like a body of water tumbling through a gorge anywhere else.”

“Undoubtedly all mountain scenery has many features in common,” Mrs. Denham said; “but if I were dropped down on the White Hills, softly from a balloon, let us say, I should know in a second I was not in Switzerland.”

“I should like to put you to the test in one spot I am familiar with,” said Lynde.

“I should not like to be put to the test just at present,” rejoined Mrs. Denham.  “I am very simple in my tastes, and I prefer the Alps.”

“Where in New England will you see such a picture as that?” asked Miss Ruth, pointing to a village which lay in the heart of the valley, shut in on the right by the jagged limestone rocks of the Brezon and on the left by the grassy slopes of the Mole.

“Our rural towns lack color and architecture,” said Lynde.  “They are mostly collections of square or oblong boxes, painted white.  I wish we had just one village composed exclusively of rosy-tiled houses, with staircases wantonly running up on the outside, and hooded windows, and airy balconies hanging out here and there where you don’t expect them.  I would almost overlook the total lack of drainage which seems to go along with these carved eaves and gables, touched in with their blues and browns and yellows.  This must be Bonnevine we are coming to.  We change horses here.”

In a few minutes they swept through an avenue of noble trees, and stopped at the doorstep of an inn alive with passengers by the diligence just arrived from Sallanches, on its way to Geneva.

Lynde was beginning to feel a trifle out of spirits.  The journey thus far had been very pleasant, but it had not wholly fulfilled his expectations.  The Denhams had occupied themselves with the scenery; they had not been much inclined to talk; and Lynde had; found no opportunity to make himself especially agreeable.  They had spoken several times of Flemming, in a vein of eulogy.  Lynde loved Flemming; but Flemming as a topic of conversation possessed no particular advantage over landscape.  Miss Denham had never looked so lovely to Lynde as she did this day; he was glad to get her again in that closely fitting drab travelling-dress, laced up to the shapely white throat.  A sense of great comfort had stolen over him the two or three times when she had sunk back in the carriage cushions and let her eyes dwell upon him contemplatively for a moment.  He was beginning to hate Mrs. Denham, and he thoroughly loathed Bonneville, where a polyglot crowd of tourists came flocking into the small waiting-room just as Miss Ruth was putting up her hair and unconsciously framing for Lynde a never-to-be-forgotten picture in the little cracked inn-mirror.